


SoTI: Gathering Storm

by beetle



Series: Sons of the Imperium [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: An Approximation of it, Angry Lavellan, Angry Sex, Angst, Banter, Consensual Kink, Consent Play, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dom/sub, Dominance, Dorivellan - Freeform, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, End-Game Dorivellan, Eventual Dorian Pavus/Male Lavellan, Lavellan Backstory, Lavellan Rogue, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Masochism, Mental Health Issues, Mutually manipulative relationship, Occasionally Unreliable Narrator, One-sided Male Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford flirtation, POV Lavellan, Painplay, Past-Dorian Pavus/Male Lavellan Inquisitor, Past-Dorian Pavus/Rilienus, Praise Kink, Pre-Dorian Pavus/Male Lavellan Inquisitor, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Rough Sex, Sadism, Skewed Viewpoint, Smut, Solavellan, Star-crossed, Submission, Tevinter Culture and Customs, Tevinter Imperium, Tevinter Inquisitor, Tevinters, Tragic Romance, True Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, unnegotiated BDSM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 07:08:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17157530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: The immediate aftermath of "Wrath of Heaven," with an elf-blooded, Tevinter Herald of Andraste and future-Inquisitor, who once went by the name “Vel Rilienus,” back in ye olde Minrathous. This fic takes place from “The Threat Remains,” through “In Your Heart Shall Burn.” The main pairing for now is the Solavellan, but the end-game pairing is Dorivellan. Once and future OTP, for this ‘verse.Will be updatedevery otherweekend. My mojo's back but time's increasingly at a premium, out of nowhere, since the end of December. If I don't write chapters in two or three huge glurts, it takes a LOT of pecking away, bit by bit, over at least ten days. Eh. Adulting sucks.





	1. Prologue: The Herald of Andraste

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BH_Chaotic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BH_Chaotic/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Tevinter Inquisitor AU. Starts in Haven, four days after Mahanon Lavellan (formerly “Vel Rilienus”) stabilized the Breach and one day after the final chapter of the first fic in the series, “Sons of the Imperium.” Fic set during “The Threat Remains,” “In Hushed Whispers,” and “In Your Heart Shall Burn.” Second fic of the series. End-of-series pairing is Dorivellan, but there’s plenty of Solavellan, in between. Expect largely (purposely) left-unnegotiated kinks, most D/s, S&M, rough sex, emotional manipulation, though not between end-game pairing. See series notes, previous fic/chapter notes, current fic/chapter notes, and tags. Will update weekly.
> 
>  
> 
> To and for BH_Chaotic . . . hopefully, a year-plus later is better than never? And . . . thank you for caring enough to ask after a continuation of the series <3
> 
>  **NEW!!!:** Now, featuring ARTZ of Dorian Pavus/Rilienus | Mahaonon Lavellan in their signature sexual and romantic dynamic, by [Beckily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckily)! [SFW](https://beckily.tumblr.com/post/181761601712/the-tumbler-version-of-a-picture-i-did-of) | [NSFW](https://dame-life.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/images/b88e5ed267cdf1811a8b.png)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mahanon Lavellan, formerly Vel Rilienus, awakens four days after the Breach is stabilized and one day after the UST between himself and Solas came to a rather heated conclusion. But _is_ whatever’s between them concluded? What’s all this about Mahanon being a “Herald of Andraste”? And why in wintery Southern Thedas’s hairy, right bollock is he freezing his _arse and feet_ off on the front steps of Haven’s chantry?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Rating:** SFW | Mature | R  
>  **Chapter Notes/Warnings:** Set at the beginning of “The Threat Remains.” Attendant spoilers, flashbacks and backstory, allusions past relationships, and RST and to potential present ones.
> 
>  

Mahanon Lavellan, the Herald of Andraste—and many other names and titles, as well, each of their own import and use—sat on the front steps of the Haven chantry, at loose ends. The aggressively sharp and cold wind whipped past-shoulder-length, rust-colored hair—clean, but uncombed—into his face.

 

When wind and hair allowed, Mahanon was alternately watching the comings and goings of Haven, the small mountain town that’d become his temporary base-of-operations . . . and the great, glowing, churning monstrosity in the sky that’d upset his entire life and everyone else’s. Possibly forever.

 

Watching. Watching and _waiting_. . . .

 

For several things, at least. For some sort of plan of decisive action to seal the glowing catastrophe in the northern sky. For his Keeper to send another spy or runner with orders. For his erstwhile partners in this . . . Inquisition business to solidify their next steps in dealing with several threats, political and otherwise, surrounding the Breach, but not connected to it beyond its obvious danger to all in Thedas.

 

For even a glimpse of a certain irritating,  _infuriating_  elven mage who probably  _wasn’t_  avoiding him—who probably had  _many_  other things to see to, in his day, whether magical or mundane. Who probably had better things to do than brood and eat his bloody libido out over some bloody Dalish Hunter he’d all-but Rogered the least little bit of life out of . . . to the point of having to use magic to heal said Hunter, afterwards. . . .

 

Who. . . .

 

Mahanon sneezed suddenly, three times in rapid succession, then dragged the sleeve of his Herald-uniform tunic across the lower-half of his cold face. The winter-weight wool rasped rather harshly across the tip of his reddened nose. Then his fingers rasped rather noisily across rust-colored stubble when he scratched his jaw. The following yawn sucked in enough frigid air to make him cough, then sneeze a fourth time.

 

The chill of a late-autumn morning in Haven had long-since been creeping its way into his bones, via his arse and his feet. His Herald-uniform’s trousers and boots were well-made and warm—if quite the target-maker in their driven-snow shade of white—but not meant for preserving warmth in arses and feet recklessly left to chill on cold stone in the end of fall. The wind, alone, was enough to cut through even the well-fed and well-furred.

 

 _Mahanon Lavellan_ , despite the stubble and the sturdily acrobatic, if not overly tall build inherited from his _shemlen,_ Magister father, was neither. A mere four days past stabilizing the Breach—including this past morning of setting foot outside the quarters that he’d first woken in three days post-stabilization—and Mahanon was still rather gaunt, stiff, and sluggish.

 

Admittedly, he was also still recovering from the days prior to his waking. From the explosion at the Divine Conclave he’d been sent to assess and report on. From the trek through the mountains to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. From sealing Breach-powered Fade-rifts with the bloody Mark on his palm. From the still-distant and untouchable memory of the desperate battle against the Pride Demon and every Fade-wraith at its beck and call.

 

From the drawing and reuniting of himself and his brothers . . . his compartmentalized triplets . . . his  _essential selves_ : the Other, the Monster, and the placeholder-person/wrangler he’d lingered at being, while waiting to become. . . .

 

To become  _whomever_  he currently found himself becoming. To become . . . _Mahanon Lavellan_ in more than a name and convenience to his mother’s father’s Dalish clan.

 

Or, perhaps . . . to become someone else, still, who was all those things or none of those things. Or who eclipsed them, entirely.

 

Mahanon didn’t know for sure. But he was  _quite_  certain, that his body and mind had finally, decisively shifted from a state of persistent, satisfied satiety and peace, and into prickly, edgy unease. The latter state was very likely sapping his strength and focus, and funneling that stolen vigor and conviction into a right  _tit_  of a brood.

 

Mahanon was also quite certain which of his selves was to blame for the resultant brooding, too.

 

 _There’ll be wealth, if Sylaise wills, and let that be that,_ he told his Other—told the not-so-late but still unlamented Vulpo Helvius, first and oldest of his selves. There was no reply, beyond a fretful ripple of the mostly-still pond-surface of their shared and layered awareness. Then, a slight, but intensifying churning of only recently calmed—then quickly, even more recently  _uncalmed_  by yesterday afternoon’s wake-up call from Haven’s resident elven apostate—waters and the grim, heavy sediment hidden beneath.

 

Vulpo, unfamiliar with and disdainful of Dalish maxims—and the product of an impoverished childhood made spectacularly bitter, in part, by his mother’s devotion to a pantheon of  _elvhen_  deities who’d long-since proven as useful as bollocks on a wooden board—was not appreciative or soothed. Mahanon couldn’t blame his Other for that disdain, nor his crucible-born Monster, Vel Rilienus, for smirking silently, but with amused indifference into their cavernous being.

 

It didn’t take gazing into that inner-void for Mahanon know what _Vel’s_ take on Vulpo’s brooding and its cause would be: a disinterested shrug and the negligent solution of: _It’s an easy enough thing to put the mage out of everyone’s misery. The Breach is stable, now. And he’s surely told some other mage his ideas on how to close it. Thus, he’s as expendable as anyone and everyone else. There’s no reason for him to be breathing, still, if we don’t wish him to be._ If _we don’t wish it, after all._

 

Frowning and looking down at his boots, Mahanon twitch-flicked his forearm and wrist. He was instantly holding a wicked stiletto he’d been given by the captain of the smuggling vessel which had brought him the final leg of his journey south, from the Imperium, by way of Antiva. As of this morning, seven hours prior, the slim, Silverite blade, and a few other back-up weapons and changes of clothing had still been where Mahanon had left them: in a carefully hidden cache not far from Haven. Upon waking just after dawn on this fourth day, he’d dressed in what he hadn’t at the time known was his (ridiculously visible) Herald-uniform. There’d been nothing for it, since he had no idea what’d become of his own filthy, tattered clothes and there’d been no way he was going to sneak around the forest and hills stark-bollocking-naked.

 

So, he’d armed himself with his oldest companions, his inherited Dalish daggers, and eschewed breakfast to retrieve his belongings. Once back at his erstwhile quarters, he’d locked himself in again, stashed his things well-under his bed, then gone back to sleep.

 

Only to wake up less than two hours later, instantly alert and certain he was being watched.

 

He’d immediately bolted up, his daggers in hand (swiped from under his pillow) and almost leapt on a shaking, wide-eyed elven serving girl. As it was, she’d seemed more frightened by his nudity and morning hard-on than his daggers and fiercely murderous expression.

 

After Mahanon had barked a few brief questions in a hoarse and healing voice—from a throat that still ached and a neck that no doubt had still borne Solas’s bruises—and she’d given stammering, semi-useless replies, he’d let her make a scurrying, fearful escape. Trailing the girl, was her trembling piping of: “At once, my lord! Lady Cassandra _said_!”

 

Rolling his eyes and sighing, Mahanon had put aside his blades and gone to shut and lock the door the girl had left ajar—without, he would only recall very, very much later, even wondering how this so-called _humble servant_  had gotten past even that simple latch-lock in the first place.

 

But in the out-of-sorts aftermath of his interrupted sleep, he’d just grumblingly redressed, and rearmed himself with his grandfather’s daggers and some other less visible weaponry. Which had included the Silverite stiletto.

 

So stylishly and dangerously caparisoned, Mahanon Lavellan had stepped out of his quarters to the sight of every resident of Haven, and then some, waiting patiently and in silent awe: true Havenites and locals, former pilgrims, clerics, and Inquisition soldiers . . . some of whom were Templars.

 

The entire bloody county, it’d seemed, had turned-up and formed two breathless, murmuring crowds, lining both sides of the road up to Haven’s chantry.

 

As Mahanon had warily, wearily taken the only road left available for him, meeting gazes with Vel Rilienus’s impassive stare and near-blank affect, he’d heard whispers of _Andraste’s Herald_ and _The Lady’s Chosen_ and _Champion of the Faith_.

 

“That’s _him_!  _That’s_  the _Herald of Andraste_! They say, when he stepped out of the Rift, _Andraste, herself_ —”

 

“—stopped the Breach from getting any bigger—”

 

“—supposed to stop it, altogether?”

 

“—Maker has rewarded His faithful with a Champion, at last—”

 

“—thought he’d be _taller_ , though . . . and less ginger, as well—”

 

“—tall enough to show those Fade-sent horrors a thing or two!”

 

“—still, it’s too bad about the whole _ginger-thing_ . . . he’s quite fit, otherwise. . . .”

 

On-edge and deeply disturbed—disgusted, even—Mahanon hadn’t commented on the whispers or the awe or the _hope_ on the lips and in the hearts of these frightened _shemlen_ sheep. Though it burned him to play along with their assumptions of his  _Maker-touched_  and  _prophet-sent_  nature, even just for the length of his erstwhile front door to the chantry on the hill . . . play along, he did.

 

Though he wanted to remind them, at full-volume, that he was  _still_  the same elf-blooded, Dalish spy—and an ex-pat _Tevinter_ , to boot—they’d wanted to tear to pieces when they’d thought he’d blown up their precious Divine and her bloody Conclave . . . he’d held his peace.

 

And, truth be told, he’d been called far worse than _prophet-sent_ in his life, and once upon an Imperium.

 

Luckily, Mahanon had soon crossed the threshold into the chantry’s brief, bare narthex, thence into the tidy, but empty nave. He’d listened briefly to the raised voices coming from behind the door to the vestry, at the far end of the chancel, then gone about some quiet reconnaissance of the building. In the cellar, he’d turned up some interesting trinkets from the chantry cells—including a large, curved, spiked dagger which, when drawn, had produced a blue-burning flame around the blade, that had flared then quickly gone out. Carved into the hilt of the dagger was an ornate rendering of a dragon, in mid-roar. Or mid-roast.

 

The weapon, itself, had been incredibly well-balanced—nearly on par with Mahanon’s Dalish blades, regarding efficacy and suitability to his hands and his preferred offensive-style.

 

Plus . . . bloody  _fire_.

 

Grinning, Mahanon had immediately wedged this enchanted find into his belt, not far from the holster for the left of his Dalish daggers—more than a little warmed by the dragon-dagger and by Vel Rilienus’s approval. As well as by both their near-sexual arousal at the acquisition of unique and effective blades.

 

He’d found little else of obvious value in the cellar, besides some coin and a few small lumps of onyx ore. More poking around on the ground-floor had revealed a shared bedroom with three beds, some books, an ancient, but well-cared-for psaltery, and an indifferently-made lute.

 

Before Mahanon had gotten a chance to investigate the closed door directly across from the beds-room, the raised voices—Seeker Pentaghast’s and Lord-Chancellor Roderick’s, occasionally joined by a third, more modulated voice that’d belonged to Sister Leliana—had grown louder and more contentious.

 

Sighing, Mahanon had aimed his feet and curiosity toward the back of the chancel and the vestry door. Both Vel and Vulpo had agreed, piqued and dour, respectively, that at least they might get to try out the dragon-dagger on the Chancellor.

 

Cassandra would probably frown, but also would probably see to it Mahanon didn’t spend any more time in the dungeon.

 

Probably.

 

“That is _not_ for you to decide!” The Chancellor had, now that the danger was less immediate, sounded more officious than ever. Even as Mahanon had reached for the vestry doorknob with his off-hand, he’d also been reaching for his newly-acquired dragon-dagger with his main-hand. “Your duty is to serve the Chantry!”

 

“My duty is to serve the principles upon which the Chantry was founded, Chancellor,” had been Cassandra’s implacable, no-nonsense reply. “As is yours.”

 

On the Chancellor’s indignant, and clearly temporizing huff, Mahanon whipped the solid door open just hard enough for it to swing wide—and for him to make a definite _entrance_ into the dramatically hearth-lit vestry—without rebounding off the stone archway framing it.

 

Both Cassandra and Chancellor Roderick, not to mention the two armored Templars to either side of the door, had started. Leliana, standing silently and with arms crossed near the back of the vestry, had looked neither startled nor much of anything else. Her mild gaze had readily met Mahanon’s as if she’d been expecting him quite a bit sooner.

 

Though he’d managed not to smile, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she actually had.

 

As Mahanon had strode to the table around which the three officials were gathered—Cassandra braced on the table as if trying to gather strength and forbearance from it—he’d taken in the stone-lined room with its many bookshelves, large, well-tended rugs, and the solid artistry of the sectional table at its center. Near Cassandra’s tense, half-clenched hands had been two large tomes, with several more off to the side and closer to Leliana’s hearth-adjacent position.

 

“Chain him! I want him prepared for travel to the capitol, for trial!” the Chancellor had ordered the Templars guarding the door.

 

“Disregard that, and leave us,” Cassandra had calmly countermanded before the Templars’ armor had rustled from even a slight attempt at obedience. She’d straightened back into her more familiar, ready-ramrod stance as the Templars saluted quickly, sincerely, and absented themselves.

 

After the soft thump of the shut door had echoed rather portentously in the room, Roderick had turned to Cassandra, haughty and displeased . . . and clearly not at all intimidating to anyone present. “You walk a dangerous line, Seeker.”

 

“The Breach is stable. It is, however, still a threat,” Cassandra had said, with stoic insistence and the air of one who was reiterating simple, obvious fact for a blithering idiot. Which, Mahanon had acknowledged, was extremely close to truth. She’d then turned from the table and its supportive strength, then approached the Chancellor like a world-weary, but determined knight-errant . . . stepped right out of a Nevarran legend. Roderick had squared his shoulders but hadn’t taken a step back. Mahanon had sensed that it was a close thing, though. “A threat I  _will not_  ignore, Chancellor.”

 

“Nor should you, Seeker Pentaghast. But allow me to predict . . . you  _seek_  my help in this endeavor? Again?” Mahanon had noted, smiling with not entirely fake warmth and familiarity at Cassandra then at Leliana, nodding to both whilst ignoring the Lord-Chancellor. Though still hoarse and rough, Mahanon’s voice had been pleasant enough—crisp and precisely Imperial with its rounding of vowels and implied amusement at displays of temper from certain Southern clerics.

 

The refinement of that particularly northern version of an Imperial accent, as well as its sedate condescension and genial viciousness, had been Filius Septimus’ specialty. One leveled upon opponents whilst playing chess and during other professional or semi-professional pursuits in which the man had engaged. Yet never once had it been leveled at  _Vel Rilienus_. Vel had been blessed and rewarded to have that voice be at its most relaxed and natural, when aimed at  _him . . . and_  at its most raw and undone. . . .

 

“ _You_  . . . have done plenty.  _All_  your actions will be taken into account by the new Divine,” Roderick had said, still supercilious and almost utterly intolerable. Mahanon had _not_ reached for or twitched-free any of his weapons, but . . . that, too, had been a close thing.

 

Before he could reply, Cassandra took another step toward the Chancellor, this one undoubtedly meant to intimidate. And it’d clearly worked, as Roderick finally took that step back from the Seeker who’d been the unflinching and incorruptible Right Hand of the two most recent Southern Divines.

 

“Have a care, Chancellor. The Breach is not the only threat we face.” The Seeker’s pale-blue eyes seemed to flash balefully and pointedly.

 

“Indeed,” Leliana agreed, coming to stand perfectly triangulated between Roderick, Cassandra, and Mahanon. Her head-to-foot, gray-mailed form was slim but spoke of stealth, speed, and agility. Of hidden strengths and hidden dangers. “ _Someone_  was behind the explosion at the Divine Conclave. Someone our beloved Most Holy  _did not_  expect.” Giving the Chancellor an oblique once-over, the lay-sister—the former Divine’s  _Left_  Hand—had gone on, her still-mellifluous voice and its Orlesian accent turned threateningly cold and steely in ways that spoke to her being the more perilous of the late Divine’s Hands. At least where the Lord-Chancellor was concerned. “Perhaps these conspirators died with the others. Or, perhaps . . . they and their allies yet live.”

 

Apparently, no one had ever gone broke betting on the Chancellor’s dismaying lack of situational awareness. At Sister Leliana’s unconcealed insinuation, he’d looked  _really_  haughty at and affronted by, but not especially wary of her. He’d also seemed . . . hurt, strangely enough. “ _I_ am a suspect?” he’d demanded, his iron-gray brows lifted practically to his hat-of-office: a fussy, brimless burgundy-and-gold hat reminiscent of an old-style, Neromenian _fez_ (minus the colored tassel) or a rather blandly designed Rivaini _tarboosh_.

 

“ _You_ , Chancellor. And many others,” Leliana had confirmed without missing a beat. Her shifting-blue gaze had been rather chilling, even to Mahanon. And, also, heartening. He'd found himself quite grateful and even thrilled that she seemed to be on his side. For the moment, anyway, and for whatever reasons. She had no longer—and perhaps never had—believed he’d murdered the Divine she’d so loved and that was, Mahanon had known, a far better omen than the approval or tolerance of anyone else present.

 

“You consider  _me_  a suspect, but  _not_  the prisoner?” Roderick had scoffed, his face scrinched and scrunched in a temperamentally toddler-esque manner.

 

“I  _heard_  the voices in the Temple. Most Holy  _called to him for help_ ,” Cassandra had persisted, but Roderick scoffed again.

 

“So, his improbable survival—that . . .  _thing_  on his palm—mere coincidence?” He’d crossed his arms mulishly and met Cassandra and Leliana’s gaze, but disdained Mahanon’s amused and congenially threatening one.

 

“ _Providence_ , Chancellor. The Maker sent him to us in our darkest hour,” Cassandra had asserted, all quiet force and near-glowing purity and truth. But Roderick hadn’t seemed moved by any of that, huffing and recrossing his arms. Mahanon’s feelings on the matter had been rather different.

 

“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about wanting to kill me where I stand? Or am I assuming too much?” he’d drawled, with more  _real_  warmth and friendliness, than not. Cassandra had met his gaze with solemn humility and candor.

 

“I was wrong about you. Perhaps I still am. I  _will not_ , however, pretend that you were not exactly what we needed,  _when_  we needed it,” she’d admitted gravely.

 

“The Breach yet remains,  _serah_ ,” Leliana had added, with a glance at Cassandra, then at Mahanon, as grim and serious as the Seeker’s. “Your Mark is our only hope of closing it.”

 

“None of this is for  _either_  of you to decide!” the Chancellor had declared, officious and offended. Mahanon had chuckled rather patronizingly and sinisterly in response, then smiled his most bland smile when all eyes had landed upon him.

 

“Is it _your_ decision, then, Chancellor? If so, and if I then turn out to truly be the  _only_  candidate for sealing the Breach permanently, how will you compel the cooperation of a man whom you’ve maligned, threatened, and imprisoned? Or, if your Chantry has its way . . . executed after a sham-trial? For that _is_ what it may very well come to, if I’m removed to Val Royeaux prematurely . . . and I’d hate to be in your shoes, if it did.”

 

At this, the Chancellor puffed up and huffed yet again . . . then paled and deflated as realization dawned on him. Cassandra, meanwhile, had paced back to the table to heft one of the large tomes upon it. Then she’d once again approached the Chancellor, brandishing the ridiculous thing like an enchanted aegis. Only to slam it down on the edge of the table nearest Roderick.

 

“You know what this is, Chancellor,” she’d said, flat and stony, her icy-pale eyes a-flash, once more. “A writ from the Divine granting us the authority to act. As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn.” Glancing at Leliana, who’d nodded, then to Mahanon—who’d simply lifted his brows to denote his interest, and his conditional and limited support—Cassandra had moved closer to the Chancellor, one deliberate, stalking step at a time. “We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we  _will_  restore  _order_. With or without your approval.”

 

Cassandra had held her position of strength and righteous conviction until Roderick—his face twisted with thwarted petulance and stymied ambition—had stormed to the door, thrown it wide enough to rebound loudly, and swanned off dramatically without closing it behind him. Mahanon had been more than glad to do so for the man while Cassandra sagged, groaned, and drifted back around the table, running nervous hands through her short, dark hair and making truncated, but anxious flailing-gestures.

 

“Well. If nothing else, at least we’ve seen the arse-end of  _him_. For the moment. Thank your Maker, for small favors, right?” Mahanon had offered rather optimistically for him, shrugging as he leaned against the closed door. Leliana had snorted and moved closer to the tome-length writ, her brow furrowed.

 

“This is the Divine’s directive: Rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos,” she’d said heavily, then sighed. “We aren’t ready. We have no leader, no numbers, and now . . . no Chantry support.”

 

“We also have  _no choice_ ,” Cassandra had pointed out, nodding at the writ. “We must  _act_. With  _you_  at our side.”

 

After several laconic blinks Mahanon had shrugged, his small, absently amused smile not changing a whit as he weathered two different, but equally piercing stares.

 

“We’ll see how this goes. But for the nonce . . . yes. I’m at your disposal to seal the Breach and slaughter every last demon and abomination that’s come of it. But I’m _not_ a Champion of your Maker or His Will. Your Maker and His Bride didn’t send me to save Their precious flock of _shemlen_ from the darkness. None of that nonsense is any of the reasons I’ve stayed. The _only_ faith I put stock in is faith in my abilities,” he’d semi-agreed and fully-warned.

 

Cassandra had looked as if she’d been of a mind to do some convincing and proselytizing but had contained herself— _restrained herself_  to a simple nod.

 

Sister Leliana, gone inoffensively hooded and unreadable again, had nodded, as well. “Your help with the Breach is all we ask,  _serah_. And you have our gratitude, for that.”

 

It had been sincerely meant, as far as Mahanon had been able to tell, and he’d sighed and sagged, himself, trusting the sturdy door more than his own drained, still-healing body to keep him upright. “Well. I’m no altruist or martyr—no saint. I, too, have a stake in this world _not_ being overrun by bloody demons. _I_ have to live here, too, after all. Same as anyone else.”

 

“Then help us fix this before it is too late,” Cassandra had plead, quiet and oddly unshielded. Mahanon had found himself looking away for a few moments and thinking of his Keeper. Of his sister. Of his mother. . . .

 

Finally, it’d been Vulpo Helvius, Mahanon’s  _Other-Boy_ , who’d propelled their tired, chilled body across the room once more, to take the Seeker’s offered hand. And it’d been the Monster-Boy, Vel Rilienus, who’d then taken the Sister’s.

 

“If this Inquisition really means to effectively seal the Breach and bring to justice those responsible for this insanity, you’ll find me relentless in pursuit of that aim.  _Beyond_  that . . . as I said, we’ll see how it goes.” Mahanon had met Cassandra’s and Leliana’s gazes and nodded, perching ably on the edge of the table, one hand laid pointedly on the murdered Divine’s final writ. “First, though, I’d like to hear more about this  _Inquisition-of-old._ ”

 

And he certainly had. More than he might have liked.

 

Now, nearly three hours after that brief, but bloody tale had been sparely told by Cassandra, with no few embellishments and clarifications by Leliana, Mahanon examined his Silverite stiletto and smiled. It was one of very few treasured tokens he had left of his life  _before_  finding his ancestral clan and being named, finally and ultimately, by his clan’s Keeper, Deshanna. Whatever long-forgotten name he’d been using whilst making the sojourn from Antiva City to Kirkwall, and thence the rest of the Free Marches beyond its most infamous City-State and port, he’d  _never_  forgotten the charming and remarkable smuggler-captain’s esteem—never forgotten her enviable style and wit. Her impressive and unsinkable vibrancy.

 

That journey south had been memorable and edifying for many reasons, not the least of which had been the many useful lessons, tips, and tricks learned even from simply observing such a  _nonpareil_  duelist and rogue . . . not to mention the many things she’d spared time to actually, purposely teach him.

 

After nearly five years, Mahanon’s stiletto had yet to require sharpening, or even polishing, though Mahanon routinely and dutifully attended to both out of remembrance and respect. Unlike the fondly-remembered captain, the stiletto was of  _Antivan_  steel and style, not Rivaini. The blade was also clearly folded and cast using  _dwarva_  forging methods—a far more common occurrence back in the Imperium and the northern Anderfels, than anywhere in  _Southern_  Thedas—with the possible exception of Kirkwall and environs. The city’s plethora of surfacers included dwarva professionals of all stripes, including the usual smiths, merchants, and artificers, as well as Carta-members and those in service or apprenticeship to either group, or any of the many guilds in-between.

 

Upon catching the brief reflection of his steel-green eyes—made steelier, still, by the pale cast of tempered Silverite—Mahanon sighed again and put the stiletto away. He glanced out at Haven, then up at the sky to see four ravens calling and darting and wheeling showily around the chantry and grounds. But they soon took off in four different directions.

 

Leliana certainly made sure her news traveled quickly and widely. This was the third set of messenger-birds he’d seen sent out since his tenure on these bloody  _cold_  steps.

 

His arse was utterly numb, by now, and his feet weren’t very far behind. Even so, he didn’t move. _Had not_  moved since late morning.

 

Had no plans _to move_ , even as the sun took a definite westward turn. Here was, after all, as good a place to brood as any, despite the cold. And far better than many to be found, all things considered.

 

But even a definite lack of plans could be stymied by a perverse universe. When a distant and obscured motion caught his eye, he glanced to his left. His breath caught sharply, then stuttered out hard. He squinted and stared for minutes, trying to spot the motion once more.

 

Even though the motion did not repeat itself, his attention and curiosity did not waver.

 

Sooner, rather than later, he found himself standing, wincing, and stretching against the chill and stiffness of his muscles, and the ache of sensation returning to his numb arse and feet.

 

In less than two minutes, he found himself standing in front of a slightly-ajar door to a small, out of the way quarters. It was near the protective, rocky outcropping that surrounded Haven on three sides, and not  _too_  far from what appeared to be some sort of apothecary shop.

 

From inside that shop, Mahanon could hear a Fereldan with a stridently thick and annoyed accent complaining at someone, about something or someone dubbed “Segritt.” Then, about a shortage of elfroot and blood lotuses; how his  _true_  talents were being utterly wasted, and: “that bloody old bastard’s squirreled-away notes.”

 

After smirking and shaking his head, Mahanon raised his hand to knock on the barely-open door . . . but didn’t follow-through. His smirk and confidence fled entirely and, instead, he took a deep, unsteady breath. Against his Other-Boy’s advice and to his Monster-Boy’s amusement, he faked a new and sneering smirk, and let himself into the quarters Solas had likely appropriated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sources & References for this chapter:**
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> "[Dragon Age: Inquisition All Cutscenes (Game Movie) 1080p HD](https://youtu.be/XI1RSlEJdRY)," featuring a Male Lavellan Rogue, used for dialogue and scene-building. Minutes [16:09](https://youtu.be/XI1RSlEJdRY?t=969) to [21:59](https://youtu.be/XI1RSlEJdRY?t=1319) referenced and alluded to in this chapter. Minutes [21:59](https://youtu.be/XI1RSlEJdRY?t=1319) to [26:43](https://youtu.be/XI1RSlEJdRY?t=1603) encompass this prologue-chapter. If any of that helps set the stage better :-)


	2. The Apostate and the Chosen Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Banter and sounding-out and dancing around each other. Mahanon isn’t always the sharpest and most self-preserving dagger in the arsenal, when it comes to Solas. But then . . . Solas isn’t always the most abstemious and austere stoic when it comes to Mahanon. And yet, despite the chill of the approaching winter, a precipitous thaw has well-begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Rating:** SFW | Mature | R  
> Chapter Notes/Warnings: See series and chapter notes, and tags, lest ye be triggered. This chapter contains continuing themes and allusions to rough sex, largely (purposely) left-unnegotiated kinks, including D/s and S&M, and emotional and sexual manipulation—though not between end-series pairing (Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus).

“The Chosen of Andraste,” Solas greeted, acknowledging but otherwise unconcerned as Mahanon stood in his half-open doorway, letting in late-autumn. “A Blessed Hero, sent to save us all.”

 

Mahanon, struck and frozen—and not by all the chilly air rushing in around him—took in the serenely still mage. Solas was sat at his leisure, in a sturdy, but uncomfortable-looking straight-back chair near the back of the single room and its low, narrow bed. The chair faced neither door nor bed, but the left-side wall and the building’s only window, which was cracked-open slightly.

 

By the overcast light spilling in, Solas’s already pale profile resembled that of a melancholy, but cunningly detailed marble. The sort Mahanon had always heard Val Royeaux was famous for. But he strongly doubted any Orlesian marbles were of apostate elves—no matter how austerely dressed and dour of countenance.

 

Solas’s chair was slightly angled _away_ from the door, which Mahanon found perplexing for many reasons, including the implied lack of consideration for personal safety. But there was plenty of him available for quick, but thorough perusal: he was wearing clothes similar to the ones Mahanon had already seen . . . dark, woolen winter-weight trousers hemmed low over plain, but durable boots, and a long, tan tunic, belted loosely at the waist and with a low-cut neckline edged in an olive-brown. Above that neckline and protecting most of Solas’s long neck, peeked the dark-green of an insulating under-tunic or shirt of some sort.

 

A small, hempen bag hung from a leather thong around Solas’s neck.

 

The mage’s long legs were neither stretched before him nor pulled in, and there was a book in his lap. His staff was nowhere in Mahanon’s immediate notice, but the brisk, cold air swirling around the quarters smelt of scorched herbs, the ashes of a burned-out hearth, and the lightning-struck air of a storm moving in.

 

It smelt of _magic_ , and of ancient esoterica. . . which set every hair on Mahanon’s on-alert body to standing straight up.

 

Placidly unbothered by his uninvited guest’s state, Solas turned a page of his book with stately deliberation that didn’t feel especially pointed.

 

Somewhat bolstered, Mahanon stepped fully into the quarters and closed the door behind him, letting out a held breath as he did. The next breath he drew in, redolent of that magic-and-secrets scent, was strangely galvanizing. “That’s what everyone ‘round here seems to think. Do I at least get to ride in on a shining steed, when I save people?”

 

“Hmm. I would have suggested a griffon.” A solemn beat. “They are, however, extinct. Thus, you may wish to keep your options open.”

 

“Well, now that you’ve got me all excited for prancing about on a giant, lion-arsed pigeon whilst saving Thedas from demons, I’m afraid _nothing less_ than that will do—sod a horse or a boring nuggalope! It’s a _griffon_ , or let the Breach take it all!” Mahanon decided, leaning against the chilly door at his back. He quite suddenly felt as if he was rapidly using up what little brass he’d managed to gin-up in himself.

 

The fact that he’d even had to do so was odd and alarming and _annoying_. As insufferable as the man who’d inspired such a necessity.

 

“Joke as you will, Herald.” Solas turned another page. The shift of cheap paper was loud in the quiet of room and area. The only other noticeable noise was from the wind, whistling dutifully in the window, then speedily out. “But posturing _will_ be necessary.”

 

“Cheers, then. And thanks for the free advice.”

 

Solas’s reply was a noncommittal sound of acknowledgement. The silence between them, recumbent, but thrumming, drew out until Solas sighed. “I have journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields, to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clashed to reenact the bloody past in ancient wars—both famous and forgotten.” He paused, thoughtful and almost disturbed, it seemed, before splaying his hand across his open book. “Every war has its heroes. I’m curious as to what kind _you_ will turn out to be.”

 

“A dead one, most likely.” Mahanon snorted, unworried about that particular likelihood, and uninterested in it, as well. As far as he was concerned, he’d been running on borrowed time since after Filius had disappeared without a trace. Since realizing that the one good thing he’d managed to secure for himself, and at such great pains, had fled his grasp . . . as had all he’d ever valued. He more dreaded what future miseries lay in store for his life, than he feared his well-earned and well-deserved death at last coming to collect—never mind the interest he’d so aggressively accrued. “What’d you mean about dreaming in ruins and battlefields?”

 

An almost yearning half-smile leavened Solas’s serious profile. “Any building strong enough to withstand the rigors of time has a history. And every battlefield is steeped in death. Both attract spirits. They press against the Veil, weakening the barrier between our worlds. When I dream in such places, I go deep into the Fade. I can find memories no other living being has seen.”

 

Even to Mahanon, that sounded less like a boast and more like . . . the quiet confiding of a secret joy, by a very odd and very lonely person. But such disarming sincerity from a normally cryptic man was enough to make Mahanon purposely re-gird himself with every ounce of sarcasm and snide dismissal at his disposal. “Right. So . . . watching history’s _greatest_ generals and warlords . . . take breaks between victories and defeats, to have a shit, pick food out of their teeth, and comb their hair? Hopefully not in that order? Sounds fascinating,” he added, making a face. “To each his own. Though it hardly seems worth the danger that comes of falling asleep in ruins.”

 

“I _do_ set wards,” Solas said, sounding almost friendly in his amusement and humor. “And if you leave food out for the giant spiders, they are usually content to live and let live.”

 

Mahanon shuddered, closing his eyes tight for a few moments. On their backs, green-gold light pulsed and strobed, and he felt near-nauseating horror—sharp and nimble and _chittering_ —coming for him at speed. _Driving him before it_ in stark, escalating waves of terror, such as he’d never known before.

 

And hoped never to know again. . . .

 

“It’s your neck, apostate. Risk it, as you see fit,” he gritted out, terse and tight, and opened his eyes to a room that suddenly seemed both too bright and too dim. _Solas seemed_ both real and unreal. “I’m sure watching dead people do dead things is entirely worth all the demons and other spooky shit that comes with it.”

 

“It is occasionally unsettling, yes. Dangerous, too. More often, it is simply sad to see what has been lost.” Solas sighed, as if he wasn’t ready to step out of the memories of pleasant idylls. “But the thrill of finding remnants of a thousand-year-old dream? I would not trade it for anything.”

 

Mahanon could only stare for a minute. Then he laughed wearily and shook his head. “By the Dread Wolf, you’re as odd as anything. Odder, _still_ , even for a bloody apostate.” He laughed again, but noted that Solas tensed and released—momentarily, but definitely. But Mahanon didn’t pause to puzzle it out. He pushed himself away from the door and took a few steps deeper into the room. Solas was still more than ten feet distant, but that felt too close and too far, at the same time. “Hopefully, helping to save the world won’t cut _too_ severely into your creepy-dead-dreams naptime.”

 

In the midst of turning another page, Solas didn’t freeze this time, but he certainly paused. For more than a moment, too. When he finally let the page fall back to its place, unturned, he looked up and out the window. Then, frowning, looked down again. In that moment, he seemed old and weary, though Mahanon had placed his age nebulously between thirty and forty.

 

“Hopefully not, since . . . I intend to stay on,” Solas finally said, low and unhappy. “I will stay. At least until the Breach is closed.”

 

“Well, that’s very good of you,” Mahanon said dryly, and Solas glanced at him, quick and narrow-eyed and angry. But he looked away again immediately, as if attempting to restrain himself.

 

“I am an apostate mage surrounded by Chantry forces—including Templars—and unlike _you, I_ don’t have a divine Mark protecting me from any of the attendant dangers. Seeker Pentaghast has been . . . accommodating. But you understand my reticence.”

 

Despite the instinct to snark about everyone having bigger fish to fry than a single apostate or a bunch of displaced Templars, Mahanon let his Other’s pond-ripples have their say. “You came here to help. Not that that’s any guarantee of fair-play or even mercy from the Chantry and its sheep, but . . . I wouldn’t stand by and let a bunch of Maker-addled _shemlen_ harm you. I _won’t_ let the bastards use the good you’ve done, and _will do_ , against you,” Vulpo Helvius said, breaking and shaking and achingly earnest—all grim and unimpeachable honesty, and conviction.

 

Once again, Solas glanced over at Vulpo— _at Mahanon_ , his face set and hard, his mouth a thin, unbending line. But that set and line softened a little, then released entirely as he all-but squinted, as if Mahanon was another book with pages to be turned and examined and divined.

 

The bright intensity of his pale eyes—for once—grew warmer. Even the unforgiving angles of his face seemed kinder. He seemed to be very nearly flustered.

 

“That is . . . generous of you, Herald. But how, exactly, would you stop them?”

 

“However I had to,” Vel Rilienus replied succinctly, bearing his teeth with the anticipation and promise of bloody murder, his hand settling on the dragon-dagger. In spite of the cold, it was still very warm. Much like the re-stoked and refocused blood-lust coiling and pooling and eddying at the core of Vel’s—of _their_ shared being. “Whatever needs must.”

 

Solas blinked and his brow furrowed. Then his lips pursed, as if he was about to speak . . . but he looked back down at his book, instead, his profile changed only by the slightest curving of his spare mouth.

 

“Thank you,” he said simply, then cleared his throat. “For now, let us hope that either the mages or the Templars have the power to seal the Breach.”

 

Mahanon nodded as both his Other and his Monster subsided for the nonce. Which left their newest facet-brother to stand about like one o’clock half-struck, still as a statue, and torn between melting into the floor and running for the door. Anything to shatter or shift the too-full silence that soon settled between himself and Solas.

 

When Mahanon continued to be a motionless wreck after several silent minutes, Solas hummed briefly, but didn’t move his focus or gaze from his book. “Nonetheless, I remain pleased that you are healing well, Mahanon.”

 

Shivering at this use of his name—which he’d only yesterday begun thinking of as _his_ , and not merely as a convenient label—as opposed to his new and entirely inaccurate title, Mahanon grunted. “I imagine so. If I’d kicked-off in the night, or something, _your_ efforts would’ve been wasted. And nobody wants _that_ , do they?”

 

“ _That_ is true.” Solas turned one more page of the book in his lap, his fingertips brushing down the left-hand margin, then he closed it gently. “And, instead of prematurely ‘kicked-off,’ you are officially an agent of the Inquisition, now. As well as Andraste’s Herald.”

 

Mahanon shrugged, twitchy and unusually nervous, and irritable because of it. “That and half a sovereign’ll buy me a fat goose and all the trimmings for a Satinalia supper.”

 

At the strange but undeniable surety that Solas was again amused—however unwillingly and under-expressed—Mahanon’s nerves settled a bit, and he felt himself on familiar, if not firm footing with the apostate. “Also, true,” Solas agreed, his profile once again stoic, and unreadable.

 

Mahanon shifted a bit to relieve stiff muscles—it _was not_ fidgeting, no matter his Other and his Monster concurring that it certainly _was_ —and eventually settled on standing at a comfortable and generic parade-rest. “So . . . it occurs to me that I know nothing about you.”

 

“Only just now, has this occurred to you, Herald?”

 

Mahanon flushed. “No, not _only just_ now. _Now_ , I have the safety and time to remedy that lack of knowledge. So, I intend to.”

 

“Hmm. Proactive, you are, to take advantage of this span of relative quiescence.” Another beat. “Though, I _am_ curious as to why your efforts have led in _my_ direction.”

 

Mahanon rolled his eyes, but was glad Solas wasn’t looking at him, for the bright blush that burned his face so rapidly.  For once, he wasn’t bold enough to plainly state the most obvious and true reasoning behind his presence in Solas’s quarters and personal-time. So, he went with the close-second reason. “You’re an elven apostate who’s never been Circle-trained. You’re not Dalish-trained, either, that’s clear. And I don’t trust unknowns, never mind their bloody cryptic demeanors and distracting ears.”

 

Solas made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh but was probably a cut-off sigh of disdain or tiredness, and Mahanon flushed deeper, still—but with no one to curse or blame except for his own incautious self and quick mouth. The surface of his inner-pond was notably disturbed by his Other’s and his Monster’s respective groans and chuckles. “Erm.”

 

“You find my ears distracting,” Solas said without inflection or question. Though Mahanon could have almost sworn the single _distracting_ ear he could see turned a bit pink. He shrugged irritably.

 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m a _shem_ -blood from Tevinter, ex-patriated to a Dalish clan, and my ears are flatter than flapjacks. _Of course_ , I think _your_ ears are at least more striking than my own! Yours, and any other full-blooded elf.” Mahanon sniffed and scowled. “Regardless, if I’m to trust my life and the entire world’s to an apostate, elven or not, I need to know more about him than he’s an insufferable git.”

 

“That isn’t an unreasonable request.” More of that warmth and humor . . . almost to the point of fondness. Mahanon didn’t bristle but tried to sound as if he were.

 

“It’s not a _request_ at all.” He snorted. “Are you self-taught, then? A hedge-mage?”

 

“That’s not how I see myself, no.” Solas made a sound that was definitely a sigh. “What else do you wish to know of me?”

 

Mahanon’s instinct was to immediately ask where and under whom Solas had studied, if not a Circle or a Dalish Keeper. But he knew that whatever answer he was given, if any, would make little or no sense to him.

 

Discarding his curiosity and the question, he, too, sighed. “Alright. What made you want to study the bloody Fade, of all things?”

 

Solas fought a frown. Mahanon didn’t know how he could tell, with the mage’s expressionless face still not looking his way, but he knew it like he knew his grandfather’s daggers. “I grew up in a village to the north, with little to interest a young man—especially one gifted with magic.”

 

“North?” Mahanon almost frowned, also. Then instantly called nugshit. “You don’t sound like the Anderfels or Nevarra. And certainly not like Rivain or Tevinter.”

 

“Nor should I,” was Solas’s even-toned reply. Then he went on, before Mahanon could follow-up on it. “As I slept, spirits of the Fade showed me knowledge and wisdom . . . glimpses of wonders I had never imagined.” Solas wanted to smile, again, now. Mahanon was certain of that, too. “I treasured my dreams. Being awake—out of the Fade—became . . . troublesome.”

 

Mahanon shuddered once more. “Did . . . did spirits ever try to tempt you?”

 

Now, Solas chuckled. “No more than a well-made blade is trying to tempt you to use it. Although,” he quickly added, chuckling again, “the analogy is a poor one, considering my chosen example. I should, perhaps, have said spirits _try_ to tempt the living like a brightly-colored fruit _deliberately_ tempts you to eat it.”

 

“I fucking hate fruit—nothing but syrup-drenched dross. It never tempts me,” Mahanon dismissed, shrugging, and Solas made that weird maybe-laugh/probably-sigh again. “A well-made blade, however, is always a temptation. Even just by my knowledge of its existence.”

 

Mahanon once again put his hand on the unusually warm dragon-dagger he’d so recently acquired. He absently hoped he’d get a chance to use it soon. Because . . . bloody _fire_.

 

“At any rate, you’re suggesting Fade-spirits are all hugs and puppies? Tea and roses? They’re nice to us if we’re nice to them?” he scoffed, and Solas hummed, seeming amused and sad, at the same time.

 

“Certainly not. But I learned how to defend myself from the more aggressive spirits, as well as how to interact safely with the rest.” Solas tilted his head almost as if he would look at Mahanon, but then he didn’t, merely sighed again and closed his hand loosely. “There was and is much for me to explore and learn. I have long-since learnt how to control my dreams with full consciousness, and my sleeping as well as my waking mind with care and deliberation. Of necessity. And as consequence, I have learnt first-hand what it is to see and experience suffering and _damage_ because of well-meant, but poorly-considered actions. Actions that can never be taken back, only made-up for. Hopefully. I have learned much, indeed, thanks to the Fade. And I will learn more, still.”

 

“Right. Such as how to increase your risk of possession exponentially every time you take a fucking nap?” Mahanon asked, flat and incredulous. _Shaking_ with sudden, escalating rage that made the hilt of the dragon-dagger feel cool against his palm. “What _suffering and damage_ do you imagine you and others would sustain if you fell to _demonic possession_? Is that a lesson you need to _learn first-hand_ , too? Or will the warnings of history and the present suffice to stay your reckless curiosity about that forsaken place? At least until the bloody Breach is no longer a threat?”

 

“Until very recently, nothing from or of the Fade has ever tempted me beyond the bounds of my own reason and caution—beyond my usual determination and agency. Far from it, actually.” Now, Solas sounded tense and rueful. _Frustrated_ and almost . . . enraged. Coldly and bitterly so.

 

But Mahanon had latched-on to a far more salient bit of statement. “A Fade-spirit has tempted you? _Recently_?”

 

“In a manner of speaking.” The mage’s affect had closed off again, quickly and completely.

 

“How? With _what_? Has this happened more than once?” Mahanon’s voice grew harder and clearer with each word, his hands twitching on the dragon-dagger and his right Dalish dagger. “Are you letting it gain a foothold in this world _through you_ , Solas?”

 

“You presume it has not _already_ found a foothold—a far better one than I.” Solas turned his intent, solemn face to Mahanon, his eyes avid and intense even through that mask of stony unreadability. But if this was a stare-down, Mahanon won it easily, as he almost always had since his Vel Rilienus-days. It wasn’t even half a minute before Solas cast his gaze then his face back toward the window. “But that is not a tale for this time. You must simply be content that I am in no danger of granting this spirit any power it does not already have. The power it _does_ have is neither focused on or interested in possessing a physical form.”

 

“And you know this . . . how? Because it _told_ you? Did it extra-super _swear_ , with strawberries and butterflies on top, forever-plus-infinity?” Mahanon snorted, his fingers dancing about the dragon-dagger’s ornately-engraved hilt. It was very warm, but Mahanon’s hands were warmer, still.

 

“It is neither the first, nor last spirit with which I’ve had congress. It hides little of its intentions or desires. I haven’t yet ascertained its ultimate goal, or if it even has one. If it does, that goal _is not_ possession.” That gaze and regard ticked back to Mahanon like icy flames given agency. “I could not be more certain of this.”

 

“Care to bet your soul on it, then? Or just everyone else’s?” Glaring, Mahanon held the apostate’s still, unreadable gaze . . . for more than a minute. But this time, _he_ was the first to look away, his hands twitching and tingling as they dropped away from both blades—with about the same willingness as he’d conceded to Solas’s stare. “You smug arsehole. Your pride will see us all dead. Or worse: _Abominations_.”

 

“You think rather highly of my mystical and magical prowess, if you believe that, Herald.”

 

“ _I know mages_ ,” Mahanon said, grim and still twitching . . . all over, now. His glare didn’t burn holes in his gray-white Herald-boots, but it was surely a near thing. “I _know_ what they’re capable of and what _can be_ capable _through_ their bloody powers and arrogance and _dreams_. Namely: _anything at all_.”

 

And because he found himself clutching his daggers again, with intent to draw them—use them—Mahanon straightened and turned for the door to Solas’s quarters. His inner-pond was roiling and almost a maelstrom with the atavistic paranoia and disgust of three people and three reasonings-against.

 

Clearly this whole visit . . . stopping in to say _whatever_ Mahanon had thought worth saying to a dangerous and conceited apostate—clearly that idea and intention had gone utterly toes-up in a spectacular fashion. In hindsight, it had obviously never been slated to go any other way. Thus, there was no need to make it even more spectacular with out-of-control rage and stabby, fire-y murder.

 

“I _am_ proud, Mahanon,” Solas said—quietly, but it was enough to stop Mahanon with his hand on the doorknob. “In truth, a strong case could be made for overwheening hubris, where I am concerned. And I am, also, powerful, relatively speaking. But that is of less consequence than the knowledge I’ve amassed and how I have learnt to put it into practice. I’m quite certain you will find it the height of my afore-mentioned arrogance for me to say that what I have learned from my many sojourns makes my magical power fairly irrelevant to my aims. Such power exists in abundance, if one knows where to look. I acquire it as needed and as I can. But _knowledge and wisdom_ . . . are rarer, finer, more precious and irreplaceable tools than brute power waiting for any willful wielder. Just as your daggers are finer tools than a claymore. Both tools will get certain jobs done, of course, but only one of them will do so with precision and economy, finesse and mastery. Not to mention . . . subtlety.”

 

“Clearly, you’ve never wielded a claymore or seen one wielded with true skill. _Any_ tool can be any _thing_ , in the hands of one who’s practiced and motivated,” Mahanon finally responded, after a tense, silent minute had passed. He let go of the knob and sighed, leaning his forehead against the chilly, rough wood of the door. “Short of killing you, I can’t stop you from doing what you will. I can only ask that you limit your Fade-walking until this knowledge only you seem to possess is no longer make-or-break to closing the Breach. There’re more lives and souls than _yours_ at stake, and it’s more than just _me_ reminding you of that.”

 

Another weighty, loaded silence settled and was unbroken for what felt like hours until Solas chuckled again, soft and sad and exasperated.

 

“I promise, Herald, I will not walk the Fade needlessly or seek out its dangers without great cause, until the Breach is under control or sealed.” Solas let several beats pass then said, quiet and regretful: “I give you my word.”

 

“Thank you, Solas,” Vulpo Helvius stepped forward to say with relief, rather than regret. And with all the quiet, earnest force in his eternally broken and bleeding heart. He lingered but a few moments in the front of their shared head-and-heart space—just enough to breathe in a deep, long breath that _Mahanon Lavellan_ let out some seconds later. “I understand this isn’t an easy or pleasant prospect for you. But surely you have other, less hazardous interests to pursue in your spare time? I take it you haven’t spent your _entire_ life dreaming and being demon-bait?”

 

“Ah, no.” This time, Solas’s chuckle was more of a snort, small and strangely self-deprecating. “No. There, eventually, came a time when I was unable to find new areas in the Fade to explore.”

 

Mahanon laughed, edgy and brief. “Right, then, it’s a place of phenomenal, cosmic power, yet . . . it only holds people’s interest about as well and for as long as _any other_ overrated tourist-trap? How disappointing!”

 

“The Fade reflects the world around it,” Solas informed Mahahon, like a mentor engaged in tutoring his ward. “To experience something new in my dream-travels, I had to travel in my waking, as well. Also . . . the Fade reflects and is limited by our imaginations.”

 

“To find interesting places, one must endeavor to be an interesting apostate, then?” Mahanon asked, turning to face the interior of the quarters and Solas, once more. The mage was watching him with a small, wistful smile. “Must be quite the challenge for you.”

 

“Atimes, yes.”

 

Rolling his eyes again, Mahanon fought a smirk and a laugh. His rages, the ever-present and the most recent, had not faded. But they _had_ subsided, somewhat. Stepped to the side, for the nonce. “You’re bloody intolerable. Even for an up-his-own-arse mage.”

 

Solas blinked and his lips twitched. “Atimes . . . yes,” he repeated, sanguinely . . . almost playfully. Mahanon’s smirk wanted to be a grin—or worse . . . a _smile_. He couldn’t even fake Vulpo Helvius’s forbidding scowl or Vel Rilienus’s blank affect. It was all he could do not to beam at Solas like a bloody idiot.

 

“Well, if your Fade-walks haven’t resulted in possession yet, and it keeps you from menacing unwary _shems_ and unattended ponies . . . have at. If Seeker Pentaghast and Sister Leliana, not to mention the Templars they’ve recruited to the Inquisition, see no issues with your . . . apostacy and _conditional_ Fade-wandering, then it’s not my place to raise the alarm or make your life difficult. _More_ difficult,” Mahanon acknowledged, then shrugged with easy-seeming affability. But he finally found his blankest affect, and most forbidding and threatening gaze, too. “At least . . . it’s not my place until and unless you _make it my place_.”

 

“I take your meaning, Herald. And I’m glad for your permission and approval,” Solas said wryly, but not disingenuously, his smile widening beyond all doubts of it. Mahanon rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, effectively making a quick and artful grab for any of his weapons a much more complicated process. Solas’s serene smile widened a little more. “Certainly, more than once I’ve rather unexpectedly enjoyed experiencing more of life to find more of the Fade.”

 

“Of course, you have,” Mahanon agreed sarcastically. Solas went on, sounding practically indulgent, now.

 

“One must train one’s will, to control magic. To withstand temptation and possession. One enjoyable side-benefit of that is a rare and increasingly indomitable focus . . . something with which I sense you are familiar,” Solas said, seemingly apropos of absolutely nothing.

 

Mahanon’s brows slowly, dramatically lifted. “Are you implying I share attributes with a seasoned apostate? If so, I don’t know whether I’m insulted, or _very deeply_ insulted.”

 

Now, Solas _really_ laughed. It was still small and quiet, but less controlled and surprisingly ridiculous. Stupid, even. Mahanon _refused_ to store the memory of it away, as if it somehow mattered even a _little_. “I am merely pointing out that we have both chosen paths we do not dislike, because they lead to a destination we enjoy.”

 

“Hmm. So, what you’re really getting at is . . . you like my . . . _side-benefits_? One of which is my indomitable focus?”

 

Solas’s fading chuckles cut-off and for a moment, he looked discomfited—even a bit pink again. Then he turned away just enough that his face and its complexion were lost to overcast daylight and smudgy-soft shadows. “Presumably, that is. The intensity of your focus _is_ rare, and I have yet to see it . . . dominated. I imagine the sight of you being dominated in _any_ way, to be . . . mesmerizing and worth seeing.”

 

“Is that so?” Mahanon was pinkish, too, somewhere under his slightly pallid tan. He approached Solas slowly, almost prowling. “Are there any other of my side-benefits you’re partial to?”

 

Solas didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then took an audible breath when Mahanon stopped moving, having halved the distance between them. “The grace with which you move is . . . pleasing.”

 

Mahanon’s brows fairly shot up, this time. “You’re . . . admitting you think I’m graceful? _Pleasingly_ so?”

 

“No. Simply declaring an obvious fact that is not up for debate.”

 

“Oh. Well.” Mahanon did some throat-clearing, too, to avoid a far-too-telling grin. He tried to will away every dram of blood in his body as it rushed toward his face. “Well, that’s . . . a relief. My life’s not been the luckiest but, having iffy, or flat-out _shit_ -grace would be unnecessary piling-on, _I_ think.” He allowed himself a smile, but only because he was certain _Solas_ was too busy rolling his eyes to catch it. “Got any other factual observations about my side-benefits? I’m all ears, even though they’re stupid and flat.”

 

Solas’s lips twitched again, and his brows lifted a touch as his gaze drifted lazily to Mahanon. “I find it remarkable that one of the Herald’s pastimes appears to be . . . fishing. . . .”

 

“Can it be a true pastime if I’ve not been in a place to indulge for almost seven years?” Mahanon flushed deeply when Solas’s gaze turned keen, as well as curious. “Erm, never mind. And there’s really no need to indulge me further—I’m simply unused to being found noticeable or . . . worth mentioning, beyond my extra-legal talents. Which, considering said talents and how I use them, is probably for the best.”

 

Solas’s playful smile faded. An expression Mahanon couldn’t read flickered across the mage’s features and in his eyes, before he bent his regard back to his window, and the overcast day beyond.

 

“You are . . . you have trained your mind and body to deliver and withstand punishment—to survive extremes of circumstance and location which most cannot even imagine.” His hand left the book in his lap and settled on the arm of his chair in a loose grip of finished, but unpadded wood. “As a result, your self-possession is unique. And your form is . . . extremely well-conditioned.”

 

After many moments of shocked staring, Mahanon at last closed the space between them. It didn’t take long. Very soon, he was standing close enough to Solas to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder, though he didn’t. “Sooooo, you like my . . . conditioning, also,” he breathed when, with two final steps, he stood at Solas’s side and close enough to feel the mage’s body-heat. His sudden tension and alertness.

 

The cool softness of the back of his hand under the glide of Mahanon’s rough-gentle fingertips.

 

“I was extrapolating that _you_ like your conditioning. And that you value its potential uses, as deduced from the obvious care you put into maintaining it.” Solas’s hand trembled only once under Mahanon’s continued caresses. “As anyone would, you surely enjoy the grace, muscularity, and agility you have earned.”

 

Mahanon moved in and around a bit, until he’d insinuated himself between the slight gap of Solas’s legs, bending a little to remove the closed book— _Hard in Hightown_ , the cover announced—and toss it at Solas’s bed. Then, before Solas could decide whether to acquiesce and gaze up at him, Mahanon dropped fluidly to his knees. Even as they touched the floor, his hands settled on _Solas’s_ knees. Then slid deliberately up to mid-thighs.

 

Despite the deference of his own posture, Mahanon didn’t wait for Solas to meet his gaze— _he_ caught _Solas’s_ , though he couldn’t have said how.

 

Certain his point was both made and taken, he leaned in as close as he could, until the long-warm brackets of Solas’s thighs rested against his ribs. He let his body arch hopefully and invitingly toward the mage, and bared his throat oh, so slightly. “And what about you, Solas? Do _you_ enjoy the grace, muscularity, and agility I’ve earned? Do you truly find the way I’m _conditioned_ . . . pleasing?”

 

Though Mahanon expected more hesitation, he didn’t get it. He got more of that intense, burning gaze, like repeated lightning strikes. “Yes,” Solas said, low and without any equivocation. He, too, leaned forward, then, the muscles of his thighs tensing as he did. His pale gaze was still a lightning-fire storm. “If you _must_ know, yes.”

 

Mahanon’s breath shuddered and shook, and his grin was predatory, indeed. His _own_ gaze felt desperate and ravenous, much like the rest of him. “ _Solas_. . . .”

 

“What occurred between us yesterday evening . . . it would not be prudent to allow that to happen again. So soon,” Solas added, this time with no breath or beat between the statement and qualifier. Mahanon smirked and leaned in as close as he could—close enough to nuzzle the encouraging beginnings of a hard-on Solas didn’t try hiding, even though his tunic had been and still was obscuring it from casual observation.

 

“I agree,” he breathed on the back of a moan, which turned into a full-body groan as Solas’s fingertips ran along his jaw, then traced the outline of his mouth. “It’s a very good thing, then, that getting fucked almost-to-death for the second time in twenty-four hours isn’t exactly why I came here.”

 

“Why, then, _did_ you come here, Mahanon?” Solas asked huskily, his breath catching when Mahanon nipped his fingers with predatory sensuality, and briefly laved, then sucked on them.

 

“ _Telling_ really isn’t my preferred method of explanation.” Though Mahanon’s tone was apologetic, his actions were not. His clever-determined fingers were diligently burrowing past Solas’s tunic and seeking, then undoing the hasps of his fly.

 

As they did, Mahanon blinked up at Solas’s attentive, almost fearfully hungry face. He held the mage’s glittering, maelstrom-gaze until the need to explain himself using his alluded-to _preferred method_ made maintaining eye-contact next to impossible. At least, in and at Mahanon’s current, and eagerly-chosen position and angle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sources & References for this chapter:**
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> [Complete Solas Romance | Dragon Age: Inquisiton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW9qZLA6ybg) [from 0:00 to 2:06] featuring Solas and a Female Lavellan. Video used for dialogue and some tone-setting/world-building.
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> "[Dragon Age: Inquisition - Solas Romance - Class Specific Flirts (Mage, Rogue & Warrior)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJFwEKD4t5A)," featuring Solas and a Female Lavellan mage, a rogue, and a warrior, sequentially. Video used for dialogue.


	3. An Agent of the Inquisition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andraste's Hera— _an agent of the Inquisition_ meets the rest of Team Inquisition. Game-plans are formed, and first steps are put into motion. The groundwork is laid for mutual respect, friendship, and collaborative world-saving. Mahanon, Vulpo, and Vel have some honest discussion amongst themselves, and Solas . . . isn’t always awful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Rating:** SFW | Mature | R  
>  **Chapter Notes/Warnings:** See series and chapter notes, and tags, lest ye be triggered. This chapter contains continuing themes and allusions to rough sex, largely (purposely) left-unnegotiated kinks, including D/s and S&M, and emotional and sexual manipulation—though not between end-series pairing (Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus). Mental health issues, grief and mourning, despair and dissociation. Mentions and remembrance of sexual activity, plus mild forays into smuttiness.

Mahanon Lavellan, Agent of the Inquisition—and erstwhile “Herald of Andraste”—strode down the main aisle of the chantry’s nave, half-lost in thought.

 

His Marked left palm was faintly tingling-freezing-burning, and spitting rather token green-gold lightning. His right hand rested on his as-yet untried dragon-dagger. The warmth of it was tangible even through Mahanon’s winter-weight Herald-trousers and despite Mahanon having spent most of the overcast early afternoon hoofing it about to get the lay of Haven’s land.

 

The mid-day hour and slightly after, had been spent in Solas’s spare quarters, on the attack and on the defense, then on his knees and pinned against the wall across from Solas’s bed. That latter circumstance, at least, had been worth the time, though he still had reservations about an apostate Fade-mage being the Inquisition’s current go-to magic wielder and Breach-expert.

 

That Solas was an elf, not a _shem_ , didn’t ease those reservations. Having spent most of his life around _shems_ and the _shem_ -adjacent, Mahanon found them far easier to read and predict than even his grandfather’s Dalish clan, let alone some random _not_ -hedge-mage of murky training, obscured background, and. . . .

 

“Bloody distracting ears,” Mahanon muttered, clutching at the dragon-dagger, which momentarily gave off markedly more heat than usual. His left hand, chilled and absent, drifted up to brush his use-puffy, chapped and bitten lips, which were, for some reason, curved in a slight, but satisfied smile that he quickly forced into his customary lack of expression. “Nonsense. Ridiculous, _fuck-shit_ nonsense.”

 

“What’s that?” Cassandra Pentaghast, walking next to him, gave him a wary look. Mahanon cleared his throat and unsuccessfully fought a blush—then a glower as his glowing palm spat more fire. But at least it’d waited until _after_ he’d begun moving it away from his bloody face to do so.

 

He cleared his throat again. “I, er—my mind wandered, Seeker. You asked me something?”

 

Cassandra nodded at Mahanon’s hand. “Does the Mark still trouble you?”

 

“Ah. You mean besides its random attempts to catch my bloody-damned-face afire?” Mahanon looked at his palm as it at last sank into silence, then snorted. “Not really, no. But it’s bollocks-on-a-board until I can use it to seal the Breach, isn’t it?”

 

The Seeker snorted, too, but smiled. “Not exactly how I would have put it, but I see your point. We _will_ have need of it, yet, however.”

 

“As has been explained to me,” Mahanon murmured, thinking—not for the first time since leaving the man’s quarters—of Solas. Of who he might really be and why he’d had such impeccable timing as to be right where everyone would have most need of a Fade-mage.

 

Then he sighed, wondering what his Keeper would make of all this—and the rest of the Lavellan Clan, too. He wondered if it was wise to ally himself with this fledgling Inquisition under an obviously elven name like _Mahanon_ , let alone the Clan-name he had yet to share. If this whole mess went even more to shit, the Dalish and elves in general might end up with more problems than ever.

 

“What’s important is that your Mark is now stable, as is the Breach. You’ve given us time. Solas believes a second attempt may succeed, provided the Mark has more power.” Cassandra paused near the door to the cellars and Mahanon stopped with her. When she turned to face him, she looked grim and weary and anxious. “He believes it will take the same level of power that was used to open the Breach in the first place. But that kind of power is not easy to come by.”

 

Frowning, Mahanon shook his head. “Not to hear _him_ tell it,” he muttered, then went on before Cassandra could enquire. “Difficult-to-come-by isn’t nearly as impossible as _impossible_. I imagine you have something in mind.”

 

Cassandra almost smiled. “We do,” she confirmed with relief and a little confidence, then lead the way to the vestry, which Mahanon was starting to call the “War Room” to himself.

 

Waiting inside, were three people. One was Sister Leliana. The second was a conventionally handsome blond wearing fancy, jumped-up Inquisition armor like he was born to it. He was also wearing some sort of fuzzy shoulder-wrap thing that looked as if it’d be unbearable in any season but a Southern Thedas-winter. Mahanon couldn’t even imagine what animal the odd thing had come from.

 

Not too far from the soldier and the vestry’s large, map-and-tome-covered table, standing near the fireplace, was a dark-haired young woman of such bearing and taste, Mahanon knew her to be an Antivan before she said a word. Her striking fashion sense—an outfit of all jewel-tone blue, burnished gold, and ruffles which _should_ have looked as ridiculous as the fuzzy, dead-thing on the blond soldier, but managed to be quirky and flattering on her—was an obvious giveaway.

 

Both she and the blond smiled at Mahanon—the Antivan with a brief curtsey and the blond with a slight nod. _Her_ smile was dazzling and all but lit up the room. _His_ smile was bluff, bolstered, and melancholy. Haunted.

 

As Mahanon’s gaze ticked between these two, Cassandra shut the door to the War Room. “May I present Commander Cullen Rutherford, leader of the Inquisition’s forces.”

 

“Such as they are,” the commander added wryly, with another nod. His light-brown eyes held Mahanon’s with apparent ease, and a grave sort of candor, similar to what he’d come to associate with Cassandra. “We lost many soldiers in the valley . . . and I fear we’ll lose many more before this is through.”

 

When the commander’s eyes flicked to Mahanon’s left hand, which rested upon the hilt of his Dalish dagger, Mahanon restrained himself from curling that hand into a fist or flailing it at the commander while imploring him to get all his staring out of the way now.

 

“And this is Lady Josephine Montilyet,” Cassandra said, gesturing to the Antivan woman. Mahanon dug up his fanciest Antivan bow—likely five years out of date, at this point, but Antivans generally appreciated sincere forays into their culture—and held it for longer than necessary, before straightening. Lady Josephine was smiling even more brightly, when he did. “She is our ambassador and chief diplomat.”

 

“ _Andaran atish’an_ ,” she said, dropping another curtsey that perfectly matched Mahanon’s bow.

 

“You speak elven,” he said graciously, ignoring her rather adorably off accent. Mahanon’s own was worse, still, with the few greetings and random words he knew. It sounded like elven as spoken by someone dying in an especially squalid gutter.

 

“You’ve just heard the entirety of it, I’m afraid,” the lady demurred, wry and self-deprecating, and Mahanon liked her with a suddenness that he found somewhat dismaying. Or might have, if his instincts for people were less keen.

 

Though he did wonder who’d been telling tales out of school, regarding him being elf-blooded. He doubted it was Cassandra, and Leliana would likely keep such knowledge close, if only because it might come in handy later.

 

That meant that the most likely culprits were either Varric—also rather improbable—or Solas. Though, Mahanon couldn’t imagine whom Solas would know well enough to chatter about such things to them. Or why he would, at all. . . .

 

At least Mahanon couldn’t be traced back to a _specific_ Dalish clan. Yet again, he was doubly glad he’d never opted into having any _vallaslin_ tattooed on his face. Aside from striking him as ridiculously conspicuous and offering a solid way for potential enemies to pick him out, Mahanon simply refused to wear free advertisement for any god or gods . . . not even Andruil, the goddess to whom most Dalish Hunters dedicated themselves and their talents.

 

“And you of course, remember Sister Leliana,” Cassandra said, and Mahanon reeled in his focus and sent a smile the Sister’s way.

 

“I would never be remiss enough to forget such an impressive . . . Chantry-sister,” Mahanon said with both sincerity and charm. Leliana’s brows lifted and she smiled enigmatically.

 

“Yes. As you may have guessed, my position here involves a degree of—”

 

“She is our spymaster,” Cassandra interjected baldly, striding past Mahanon with a nod. As she took up a position at the table, near Leliana, the commander cleared his throat around a snicker. Lady Josephine’s smile grew deeper and she brightened with real, infectious mirth.

 

“Yes—tactfully put, Cassandra,” Leliana drawled, rolling her eyes as she sent a rather sharp and exasperated look Cassandra’s way. Smirking, Mahanon also drifted to the table, standing next to Cassandra and across from Lady Josephine.

 

“It’s a rare pleasure to meet you all, despite the circumstances,” he allowed, once more channeling his inner-Deshanna for graciousness and diplomacy. And when no one leapt on him or even threw a punch, he could only assume that his inner-Deshanna had succeeded. “Cassandra tells me you’ve got a plan regarding sealing the Breach.”

 

“I mentioned that your Mark needs more power to seal the Breach for good,” Cassandra agreed, glancing at Leliana, then the commander. It was the former that took up the explanation.

 

“Which means we must approach the rebel Mages for their help.”

 

“And I still disagree,” the commander said, dour, stiff, and defensive. His gloved hand even rested on the pommel of his longsword. “The Templars could serve just as well.”

 

 _Ah_ , Mahanon thought, mentally overlaying the armor of a Southern Templar on the Inquisition’s commander. Suddenly, the man made quite a lot more sense than he had even moments ago. And, on the heels of that, Mahanon—no, _Vel Rilienus_ found himself wondering what the man looked like on his back, with his hands behind his knees and his legs up in the air.

 

Or bent over and bracing himself on the edge of a bed, or the back of a sofa, or across the flat of a table. _Panting for it_ as he sent wild, heated looks over his shoulder, and—

 

Recalling himself to the matters at-hand—the last thing he needed was a persistent hard-on in a bloody Chantry vestry/War Room . . . especially since he expected company in his quarters after sunset, to take care of such urges—Mahanon shuttled Vel’s piqued voracity to the back of his mind and let the small fantasy go. Though, with the final, wistful certainty that whoever was the _first_ to see the commander take cock from such a privileged vantage-point—as if the man had been waiting for someone to make him do so all his life—would be a lucky man, indeed.

 

“We need power,” Cassandra was saying, succinct and to the point, as ever. “Enough magic poured into that Mark—”

 

“Might destroy us all,” the commander finished bluntly, his voice as brittle as it was unyielding. His gaze ticked briefly to Mahanon—rather, to Mahanon’s left hand—then back to Cassandra. “Templars could suppress the Breach . . . weaken it, so—”

 

“Pure speculation,” Leliana jumped in, her voice gone steely and unusually edgy. The commander’s stern scowl settled on her, grim and wary.

 

“ _I_ was a Templar. I know what they’re capable of,” he said, and Mahanon—his recent theory of the commander’s origins confirmed—couldn’t tell if it was more conceit or caveat. He wasn’t even certain it mattered since, just as with a group of Magi, he trusted a gaggle of Templars about as far he could throw them—trusted them to police their own ranks about as well as he trusted the Magisterium back in Tevinter to do the same.

 

Which was to say, not at all.

 

And nothing about the commander’s stiff, defensive, hand-on-sword stance was inclining Mahanon to feel otherwise.

 

“Unfortunately, neither group, Templars or Mages, will even speak with us, yet,” Lady Josephine reminded the room, a voice of pragmatism that made Mahanon like her even more. When she turned considering hazel eyes upon him, he winked and she smiled, though it was small and apologetic. “The Chantry has denounced the Inquisition—and _you_ , specifically.”

 

Mahanon smirked. “How shocking—I feel _terribly_ shocked, Lady Josephine. Perhaps I should lie down. . . .”

 

Leliana huffed. “Were you one of the faithful—the _Southern_ faithful—you’d have been excommunicated, by now.”

 

“And executed, no doubt,” Mahanon retorted sarcastically. “They’re only moved to get off their lazy, whingeing arses when there’s a hint of threat to their power and control. Not that I even pose one. They can sit on their precious Maker and spin, for all I care. I just want the bloody Breach nailed shut for keeps.”

 

Cassandra _and_ Cullen winced. Leliana snorted and gave the not-unprecedented impression she was amused. Lady Josephine’s brows lifted, but her smile remained.

 

“An admirable and on-point goal. But with some calling _you_ —a young man who . . . has obvious ties with the Imperium, and is partially of Dalish descent—the _Herald of Andraste_ —”

 

“Which I didn’t ask for, by the way! There’s _no part_ of that title that isn’t ridiculous, fuck-shit _nonsense_. Especially the parts where _I’m_ heralding for Andraste. I don’t work for nonexistent clients with nonexistent coin,” Mahanon flatly asserted. Lady Josephine winced, at last, and Mahanon could only imagine Cassandra and Cullen were swooning into muscular, honorable heaps where they stood.

 

Leliana, however, was probably as serene and amused as ever.

 

“Whether or not you take the claims of your . . . brush with divinity seriously, there are many who do. And that frightens the Chantry,” Lady Josephine went on, her tone gone grim and frustrated. “The remaining clerics have declared it blasphemy—and _we_ heretics for harboring you.”

 

“Chancellor Roderick’s doing, no doubt,” Cassandra ground-out with towering disgust.

 

“Gutless little squeaker,” Mahanon muttered, his hand dropping to his enchanted dragon-dagger. Its uncanny warmth had a strangely settling effect on his temper this time, rather than an enflaming one. He supposed the dagger liked the sound of the Lord-Chancellor more than it’d liked Solas.

 

Not that Mahanon could really blame it, but at least Solas had been good for one life-altering tumble and a stress-relieving bit of rough all within the same twenty-four-hour period. All _Roderick_ had ever done for Mahanon was to try and have him dragged to Val Royeaux for imprisonment, trial, and execution.

 

Though Solas could be more than a bit of a prick, even _he_ hadn’t been quite _that_ much of one. Yet.

 

“He certainly hasn’t helped our cause,” Lady Josephine agreed with momentary exasperation. But, like any professional, the lapse was only momentary, and easy to dismiss as more imagination than observation. She turned a stalwart, solemn smile on the commander, who was brooding waspishly at the huge map on the vestry table. He was still gripping his sword as if wishing to hack at _something_ until the problem of the Breach was resolved. “And his determination to impugn and malign the Inquisition has already limited our options. Approaching the Mages or the Templars for help is currently out of the question.”

 

“Of course, it is,” Mahanon muttered, shaking his head. “Why should they, or anyone be at all concerned with the bloody Breach—the _real danger_ to the Maker’s precious sheep, and all of Thedas, besides?”

 

“They _do_ know it’s a danger and they _are concerned_ . . . they just don’t think _we_ can do anything about it,” the commander said, sounding resentful and bitter. After a moment of consideration, Mahanon could understand why the commander would sound that way.

 

It was common knowledge that in Southern Thedas, most Templars “retired” from Chantry service by dying—ultimately by suicide or starvation, if turned out of their order and left to the depravity caused by lyrium addiction and utter destitution.

 

Suddenly, the commander looked up and met Mahanon’s eyes, as opposed to Mahanon’s left hand. The man’s stare was formidable and rather intense, his eyes a notable shade of buff or tawny . . . like a lion’s hide. Which didn’t seem unfitting, if the commander had not only managed to survive casting off the shackles of the Southern Chantry, but of the order to which he’d sworn his life, death, and service.

 

 _Treated like shit and betrayed by the people who were supposed to care for and guide him. Thrown away as if his loyalty and skill, and he, were rubbish_ , was Vulpo’s murmured acknowledgement in the back of their headspace. But their heartspace was where it echoed, quiet and powerful. Vel, meanwhile, barged forward to give the commander a slow, lingering once-over that ended with those tawny eyes, and Vel’s probably disquieting grimace-smirk and a belated wink.

 

The commander blinked, blushed _deeply_ , then cleared his throat and looked back at the map. He was clutching the pommel of his sword as if it was a final lifeline.

 

 _Your idea of allure is fucking mortifying_ , Mahanon informed his Monster. His _Other_ immediately chimed in with: _More like absolutely_ terrifying _. As if the man hasn’t likely been through far too much, as it is, from the Southern Chantry and Templars!_

 

The aforementioned disquieting smirk also echoed throughout their being—mostly their body, as a flush of lazy desire and intent. Here, by Vel’s gut-and-blood reckoning, was a more worthwhile _divertissement_ than some infuriating-bloody-apostate . . . no matter how distracting the apostate’s ears or how devastatingly he wielded his prick.

 

 _I’d fuck the commander till our prick dropped off_ , Vel noted almost wistfully. _Then, till our fingers and tongue went the way of our prick. And he’d beg me for every single inch. Remember what Luca said about Fereldan men: ‘Their women’s husbands, but_ all men’s _wives’? Ser Rutherford would be ruined for_ everyone _else, by the time I lost interest. I’d see to that._

 

“How generous of you, _serah_ ,” Mahanon grumbled under his breath, and the other four people in the room shifted their attention to him. Turning at least as crimson as the commander had, Mahanon shrugged defensively. “I missed that last bit, sorry.”

 

“The Chantry is telling everyone you—and the Inquisition—will make the Breach worse,” Lady Josephine repeated, before a glowering Cassandra could offer the reproof obviously waiting on her tongue. “Which is also not helpful to our reputation.”

 

“But there _is_ something that might be—something you could do that would help,” Leliana said suddenly, brightening and even smiling. “A Chantry cleric, by the name of Mother Giselle—who is not far from here and knows the other clerics involved far better than _I_ —has asked to speak to you.”

 

Mahanon blinked. “The _royal me_ , or . . . _me_?”

 

Leliana’s smile twitched. “Whichever _you_ would be willing to meet with her. Her assistance _could_ prove invaluable.”

 

“ _Or_ it could prove to be an ambush,” Mahanon said laconically. Leliana’s smile widened.

 

“That is possible, but doubtful. From what I know of her, she is a kind soul—not at all the sort to involve herself in violence.” That smile faltered, faded, was gone, and the Sister’s green eyes flickered with unhidden worry. “Even now, she tends the wounded and helps the displaced in the Hinterlands near Redcliffe. Should you choose to act on the Inquisition’s behalf in this matter . . . that is where you will find her.”

 

Leliana held Mahanon’s gaze, and around him, the other three all-but pinned Mahanon with their hopeful—no, worse . . . _faithful_ —stares. Coupled with the lay-sister’s roundabout question, Mahanon felt horribly uncomfortable and put-on-the-spot.

 

He had to fight not to draw any of his blades, but _especially_ the fancy, fiery one.

 

Finally, sighing, he drifted closer to the table and leaned his right hip against it. Then he clapped his hands with child-like glee and made an over-the-top eager face—insincere, to the point of assholery—for good measure. “Huzzah! I get to travel to the Fereldan Hinterlands and track down a single Chantry cleric! One who might be waiting to ambush me, or who simply has a bloody death-wish! _And_ I get to try to avoid death-by-crazy-Mages-or-even-crazier-Templars! Plus, all the bloody goat-meat I can hunt! Huz- _zah_!”

 

In the abashed silence that followed, the others shared glances with each other, then stared at Mahanon, who was still wearing his most shit-eating grin. Finally, Cassandra, sober as a Magister, asked: “Excellent. When can you be ready to travel?”

 

After half a minute of gobsmacked gaping, Mahanon shut his mouth, shook his head— _laughed_ —and sagged a bit. “Give me the rest of today and all of tomorrow. I’ll be ready the morning after,” he said, pre-emptively tired and flat. And grouchy.

 

“That is fine. We are waiting for a report from our lead agent in the area, Scout Harding. So, we may need a few days, yet, before we set-out,” Cassandra said with unironic approval of Mahanon’s guesstimate for his own readiness. And, as if that was a catalyst, the commander spoke up, as well, seeming upbeat and hopeful for the first time since Mahanon’s arrival.

 

“And, perhaps, look for other opportunities to expand the Inquisition’s influence, while you’re there,” he suggested, sounding tentatively engaged as he leaned on the table and focused on the Fereldan Hinterlands-section of the large map. He squinted a little. “Our reach is nonexistent, at the moment, Herald. Redcliffe local leaders and even the Arl, himself, would be a feather in our collective cap, as support and resources go. Not to mention something approaching legitimacy on the international stage.”

 

“Let’s not get carried away, commander,” Mahanon said dryly, and that earned him an amused glance and a small, wry smile.

 

“Yes, I clearly forgot myself in all the excitement.” The commander chuckled and turned back to the map, still smiling. Mahanon’s admiring gaze—and Vel’s and Vulpo’s, as well—lingered for a few moments after, until Lady Josephine spoke.

 

“We _do_ need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley. And you _are_ better suited to recruit them than anyone,” she insisted and Mahanon’s brows shot up.

 

“And why is that? Because of my refined charm and social polish?”

 

Lady Josephine laughed prettily. “Well, that, and a few other factors. Your reputation and fame for stabilizing the Breach and stopping the Pride Demon have preceded you, no doubt. As has your title. Either way, the _Herald of Andraste_ could become the Inquisition’s most valuable agent.”

 

“And though not all will believe the tales of your circumstances and victories—even without the embellishments these tales have likely accrued—far more _will_. Because they’ll _need_ to,” Leliana added quietly, holding Mahanon’s gaze once more. “As an agent, you can use that to your advantage, should you choose to.”

 

Sighing, Mahanon nodded. He’d use whatever was effective at solving the Breach-problem sooner, but that didn’t mean he’d like it. Just the thought of _shems_ treating him as some sort of Maker-sent paladin was . . . problematic in so many ways.

 

He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Deshanna and the Lavellan Clan would be thinking or assuming about him, his loyalties, and his intentions.

 

 _Bloody-fucking-Breach,_ he thought tiredly, sagging a little more, but meeting the eyes of his erstwhile comrades and nodding his assent.

 

“In the meantime, let’s think of some other options.” Cassandra glanced at Mahanon and smiled in edgy-grim camaraderie. “I won’t leave this _all_ to the Her—ah, to the Agent.”

 

“My thanks, Lady Cassandra,” Mahanon said sincerely, though he was also amused that he could _still_ hear the respectfully capitalized first letter of his new title in her voice. He smiled and bowed to her the way he had to Lady Josephine. Cassandra looked startled, then flustered, then exasperated. Huffing, she turned her attention to Leliana.

 

“Have you heard any recent news from or about the Grey Wardens? Anything about the Warden-Commander?”

 

Leliana actually frowned. “Nothing since the last information I shared. My sources have not been able to locate a single Grey Warden, and that _includes_ Warden-Commander Mahariel.” Her lips pursed and despite the ruddy light of the huge hearth, Leliana suddenly looked pale and drawn. But while Mahanon was still busy being startled at the vaguely familiar Dalish name, she went on gravely. “Even King Alistair has not heard from Theron in quite some time. His Majesty and I are both . . . concerned for our dear friend. . . .”

 

#

 

It wasn’t until the sun was well-down, and the hour reaching closer to midnight than noon, that Mahanon returned to his quarters with laden arms.

 

He dumped his burden—a mess of modified, Inquisition scout-mail and armor, and a sturdy pack already filled with reinforced and weather-appropriate traveling clothes, as well as other small sundries—on his bed with relief. Then, he stood glowering, with his hands not on his narrow hips, but on his holstered Dalish blades, at the utter disarray when the pack suddenly tipped over and everything tumbled everywhere out of the untied top.

 

The items of clothing were in a plain, but solidly made style, designed to blend in with the greens and earth-tones of the Fereldan Hinterlands. They’d been acquired from a salty, old hand of a quartermaster called Threnn, who’d not had much to say to him, beyond her idiotically stubborn political opinions. At least until after Mahanon had done her the favor of setting out into the woods, partway up into the mountains, to locate her lost-bloody-logging stand. If only so that she’d have _one less thing_ to gripe at everyone about and could perhaps focus better on her job. And on mooning over her bloody hero, Loghain MacTir.

 

Well-before sunset, Mahanon had returned to Haven, chilled and sniffling, with sticks in his hair and dead leaf-bits clung-to his Herald-wear. He’d drawn Threnn a quick map of where the logging stand was, as well as pinpointing several nearby iron-ore veins so plentiful, rich, and close to the surface, all one’d have to do was shovel off the dirt and snow then carry-off the ore.

 

Threnn’d all but kissed him (he’d been ridiculously grateful when she hadn’t), but had, instead, got his traveling gear sorted, herself. Then she’d walked him right to Harritt, the smith—another displaced Fereldan like Threnn: competent, but rather less unpleasant than she’d initially been—to get his weapons sharpened and modified, and have some armor fitted.

 

Watching Harritt and his ‘prentices work had been fascinating, and the man, himself, interesting. He’d been a refugee from a town called Lothering ten years prior, during the Fifth Blight that’d decimated parts of southern Ferelden and the northern edge of the Korcari Wilds. The same Blight that had been stopped by the Hero of Ferelden . . . the missing and missed Warden-Commander Theron Mahariel.

 

Harritt’s tales of his road from Lothering, and all points between there and Haven, had been sparely, economically told. And at the end of Harritt’s inclination and impetus to talk, Mahanon’d been presented, via the man’s ‘prentices, a new, surprisingly flexible haubergeon of fantastically small rings; gauntlets and chausses done-up like light brigandine, and with the same sort of flexible, fine-ringed mail sewn in between the protective outer leather and the cotton-lined, woolen inner-cushioning.

 

And Harritt, himself, had been carefully and masterfully applying a Cleansing rune to Mahanon’s Dalish daggers while he told his tales. The first person to whom Mahanon had ever willingly given-over his only remaining heirlooms of his grandfather’s family.

 

When the smith had finished, he’d polished-up the Dalish daggers with reverence and admiration, before offering them to Mahanon with a flourish and a smile.

 

“Couple of beauties, you have there, Herald—and you’ve taken excellent care of ‘em, too. But even with just that basic Cleansing rune, they’ll take much better care of _you_ , now. You’ll have a quicker time bringing down demons and darkspawn, an’ that. Corrupted things,” he’d added to his grim promise and nodded. Mahanon, who’d been examining his grandfather’s blades, had noticed a difference he hadn’t been able to put his finger on . . . a fiercer gleam or sharper edge—the pure-unalloyed flicker-flash of the steel, like enchanted Silverite gone purer and brighter and better, still. “Plus, I hear tell, the rune makes _any_ blade glow bright-blue when eldritch things’re about. Probably an old wives’ tale, that. But I suppose you’ll be finding that out for yourself, soon.”

 

“Indeed.” Unaware he’d been beaming, both serene and predatory, Mahanon had nodded, too, then made a few experimental and truncated lunges, slashes, parries, and upper-cuts with his daggers before sheathing them showily and bowing gratefully, respectfully to Harritt. “My thanks, Master Harritt.”

 

Harritt had waved him away, chuckling. “Thank me by makin’ sure demons and darkspawn don’t carry-off any more of my homeland than they already have,” he’d said, only half-joking. Mahanon had nodded again, but solemnly.

 

“As long as there’s breath in me, _serah_ , Ferelden and her people _will not_ mourn another Lothering,” he’d sworn—or perhaps it’d been Vulpo . . . as suddenly flagging as Mahanon had been, he hadn’t been able to tell nor had he particularly cared.

 

Harritt, meanwhile, had studied him for a minute, then nodded once again, too: relieved and grateful. Smiling.

 

“I believe you, Herald. And I _don’t_ envy any demons that try to make a liar of you, either.” Then, seeming pleased, he’d wished Mahanon a good evening—then _stopped_ a supplies-laden Mahanon when he’d had one foot back in the lane, to press a scuffed, but well-made scabbard on the top of Mahanon’s armfuls of gear: one large enough to sheathe the dragon-dagger.

 

Then, with another bluff _good evening_ and more shooing, Mahanon had found himself out in the lane, once more.

 

By then, the sun had been fully-set and, after an afternoon spent in the War Room, tramping around Haven then the bloody verge leading higher into the mountains, and finally, loitering in the smithy—the first pleasantly warm place Mahanon had been able to linger at since his arrival in Ferelden—there’d been nothing for it but to go back to his quarters. Hopefully to collapse into unconsciousness for the next ten or twelve hours.

 

Even the scents of food from various homes he passed—and from the Chantry and tavern up the hill—hadn’t been enough to tempt Mahanon into finding the energy to acquire sustenance. All he’d wanted was to put down his gear, then _lie down_ his bones.

 

Now, as he stood and contemplated his gear-festooned bed, he realized lying down might be a ways-off, yet.

 

“Fucking glorious,” he muttered to himself, automatically removing his many equipped weapons and tossing those on the bed, too. Then, he backed toward his quarters’ lone chair and table, and flopped into the former with a grunt. He knew he’d be best-off making quick in-roads to repacking and sorting his gear for better weight distribution, _et cetera_ —and to just get it all off his fucking _bed_ so he could fucking _lie down_. . . just for a bit. . . .

 

Nonetheless, quarter of an hour later, Mahanon was _still_ sat in his quarters’ lone chair: slumped to his right, elbow braced on his small dining-table, chin braced on his right hand, snorting and sighing as he half-dozed and _half-berated_ himself for half-dozing. And his Other and his Monster weren’t exactly shy about expressing their own opinions of how the so-called “Spearhead” was managing his job.

 

 _A little effort now and we can stretch out, get warm, and rest more fully,_ Vulpo chided fretfully. _Soon begun is soon done, after all. And if you leave all that mess until later, we’ll only be_ more tired _when we have to sort it._

 

 _Doesn’t really matter. It’s never warm or restful, anyway. Not anymore. Not really,_ Vel opined with perfect and featureless disinterest that neither Mahanon or Vulpo bought for a moment—especially as the unusually loquacious Monster-boy went on. _Back in Minrathous, even when we fell asleep in the main room of our suite, our_ domine _always got us to bed and under a pile of blankets . . . especially when it was chilly. Wrapped his arms around us and kept us warm and safe. And near the end of . . . everything . . . Little Girl would sneak her way into bed and under the blankets, and knead Filius’s thighs with her claws. Or bite his toes. He’d grumble and complain, and Little Girl would purr and look smug while I petted her. And I. . . ._

 

Mahanon, still barely conscious, sighed miserably, stirring only briefly before settling again. The Monster-boy had cried twice in his misbegotten years of life. Only twice. And though, there’d been opportunity and reason since— _a-plenty_ —neither he, nor the Other-boy . . . _nor Mahanon_ had shed a single tear in nearly seven years.

 

Not since Filius disappeared. . . .

 

 _Loss never hurts less_ , Vel noted with gentle matter-of-fact-ness—it bordered on empathetic—for his Other and their Spearhead. Even though said Other was at last too accepting of that essential fact to even be ragingly heart-broken, anymore. Just as the Monster was too weary to fight every losing battle until it wasn’t, and simply because fighting felt less like being dead than anything else did

 

Just as their Spearhead was currently growing—slowly, painfully—beyond his jaded-wounded cynicism and into something approaching true person-hood.

 

 _No . . . it doesn’t. One merely learns to bear-up under the despair better. Or not_ , Vulpo lamented in utter agreement, the outer bounds of his jangled and jangling awareness quaking and turbulent, in contrast to Vel’s streamlined, sanguine lack of investment in most situations or perspectives.

 

 _That’s true. We’ll_ never _know what happened to Filius—even if he’s alive or dead. In light of that, it’s best to simply accept that limitation and put that old life behind us. It_ has _shaped us, yes, but it is no longer of-the-moment or relevant,_ Mahanon told his Other and his Monster. Vulpo snorted and Vel smiled . . . neither flat nor disquieting nor dangerous. This smile was almost kind, and somehow _far_ more hurtful than if _both_ Mahanon’s brothers had raged and despaired at him in tandem, within the confines of their skull, for an hour.

 

 _Not knowing is perhaps the worst thing of all. We_ don’t _know whom, if anyone, to hold responsible for taking him from us . . . whom to hold responsible for the past seven years of grieving and dragging-around, half-dead and wishing it was all-dead._ Vel gave the impression of shrugging and pulling away from their shared awareness slightly _. If we knew who was responsible, we might at least have_ vengeance _before we die, if not happiness or even satisfaction, ever again._

 

 _We would obliterate everything they’d ever loved from the face of Thedas, then spend a month obliterating_ them _from Thedas, too. Bit by severed, bloody, screaming bit._ Vulpo was the one to sound wistful, now. Yearning and hopeful. Utterly lacking in self-consciousness or artifice and deeply, quietly mad. _Then . . . we could_ finally end _this nightmare-slog through abject despair. With one ultimate act we could at last earn, if not satisfaction, resolution. If not happiness, at least an_ end to everything _. At least . . . oblivion . . . the only peace we’ll ever know. . . ._

 

Currently slipping off into oblivion-lite, Mahanon couldn’t deny that sounded . . . less awful than living until he died of old age. Or of murder-gone-wrong. It sounded proactive and like a life that’d been lived poorly but had at least _ended well_.

 

It sounded like—

 

“I see you did not latch your door, after all, Herald. In fact, you left it noticeably ajar.” A soft, but reverberating voice said, piercing into the gloom of the triplets’ headspace and heartspace like a bright, sterile ray of moonlight. “Should I be flattered? Or, perhaps . . . humbled?”

 

“Hmmmm. . . ?” Mahanon inhaled deeply, shaking himself back into himself fully, then fully _awake_. He sat up straight, blinking heavy, stinging eyes open and, instead of already reaching for one of his unequipped blades . . . he reached up to rub those tired eyes. Then he yawned, his formerly trebled vision clearing. His selves-winnowed awareness sank into icy-burning, winter pond-blue. “Oh. ’S you. Shit.”

 

Solas’s smile was small and absent . . . and quickly aimed at Mahanon’s gear-cluttered bed. “You’ve been busy since last we saw each other.”

 

Mahanon grunted. “An agent of the Inquisition’s work is never done. Might be off to the Fereldan Hinterlands in a day or two.”

 

“So I’d heard.” Solas glanced over at Mahanon again, and his smile widened at the silent, but readable question on Mahanon’s face. “You did not think you would be the only one the Seeker drafted for this mission, did you, Herald?”

 

“She mentioned that _she_ might join the party traveling to the Hinterlands, and that she might ask two others, but . . . not that _you’d_ be one of the two,” Mahanon said slowly, his brain fuzzy and half-lulled by the lack of wind sweeping around his quarters. Solas must have closed the door behind him—a small kindness that made Mahanon smile up at the mage, even as he yawned again. Solas blinked, then looked away, clearing his throat.

 

“Our fourth is likely to be Varric Tethras—and his impressive Bianca, as a fifth,” he added gravely, crossing then uncrossing his arms. He squinted at Mahanon’s messy, junky bed, then huffed and removed his staff, holster and all. He leant them against the wall, near Mahanon’s table, then approached the bed with particular resolve.

 

As Mahanon watched, Solas not only unpacked and repacked Mahanon’s haphazardly crammed pack, but he moved it to the floor beyond the night-table—not far from his own staff. The haubergeon, gauntlets, chausses, boots, and the surcoat of brown leather Threnn had added spontaneously to Mahanon’s requisitioned items, Solas stored in the plain, narrow garderobe near the shuttered window, along with all of Mahanon’s weapons.

 

But for the Dalish daggers, of course. Those, Solas placed with careful respect on the night-table.

 

With the bed cleared, the apostate stepped into the quarters’ small anteroom, then came back a few seconds later with five thick logs. Three he placed in a small rack left for that purpose, to the right side of the Spartan hearth. The other two he placed on the guttering fire, which he then stirred up until the logs had caught and were burning.

 

When Solas had at last finished his unhurried puttering and had been standing before a once-more nodding Mahanon for several minutes, Mahanon finally roused himself again, and blinked and squinted up at the amused apostate.

 

“What’s so funny?” he demanded, yawning again. Halfway through the yawn, his stomach growled ferociously.

 

“When was the last time you ate?” Solas wondered. Mahanon smirked—it felt more loopy than rogue-ish—and let his again-doubling gaze scan down Solas’s lean form. He then let it linger pointedly at crotch-level.

 

“Early afternoon.”

 

“I . . . meant food, Herald.”

 

 _Now,_ Mahanon’s smirk felt just right. He let his gaze meander back up to Solas’s pale face, which was actually quite pink. Especially his bloody _distracting_ ears. “Oh. Not sure, then. Probably not long before the Conclave blew-up.” He shrugged and Solas sighed.

 

“I begin to suspect you will be the death of us both, Mahanon,” he said softly, then snorted. “You may as well lie down and rest, while you can. Though I would prefer it if you ate a little before you lost consciousness, you’re already more asleep than awake.”

 

“ _You’re_ asleep. Arsehole,” Mahanon added, then snickered. Then pried open eyes he hadn’t been aware he’d closed again, because he couldn’t remember what was so funny or why once his laughter stopped. Solas was staring at the bed once more, looking ponderous and put-out.

 

“Well, then, Herald. I stand corrected. Nonetheless, I shall arrange for breakfast to be brought to your quarters, tomorrow morning, at half-seven.” Solas’s attention shifted back to Mahanon and he moved closer, holding out his hand with marked reluctance. But Mahanon had already levered his drained body upright, into a wobbly standing position, before he realized he’d been offered a hand up. Then, it hardly mattered, as the sudden change from sitting and half-asleep, to standing made him overbalance dizzyingly and stagger into Solas, who caught him with steady ease. His hands on Mahanon’s biceps, then hips, were very warm, though the rest of him seemed far from even room temperature. Giving off no heat, and almost inert.

 

The rest of him. . . .

 

Mahanon’s eyes widened when realization and recall hit, as he stared up into Solas’ austere face. Blushing, he flung his arms around Solas’s neck and pulled the apostate as flush as possible—until the hard-on he’d _thought_ he’d felt prod his abdomen briefly was an unmistakable battering-ram of _yes_.

 

Solas’s pale, winter pond-eyes were just as hard as they bored into Mahanon’s. Smoldering, too.

 

“I’m meant to be showing you some Dalish hospitality, aren’t I?” Mahanon remembered, stifling another jaw-cracker yawn. Solas’s brows lifted and he nearly smiled.

 

“You need your rest, Herald,” he insisted, lashes and lids shuttering that heated, naked stare as he glanced away.

 

“Maybe I _need_ something of _yours_ even more.” Mahanon bounced up on his toes, pressing his body so very tight against Solas’s, then leaned in to press his _lips_ to the stern line of Solas’s mouth.

 

A few seconds into the held, close-lipped buss, Mahanon’s eyes fluttered shut, and the last thing he saw as they did was Solas’s intense, alert gaze. Then, he was moaning at the tingle-thrill of this new contact, his body pliant and pleading against Solas’s rigid, unyielding one.

 

The apostate held him up and in-place . . . but did not _hold him_. He allowed the kiss . . . but did not return it.

 

At first.

 

Mahanon had only just started to doubt his course of action when Solas began to respond with surprisingly gentle savor—soon rendering the kiss almost languorous with skill, patience, and thoroughness that Mahanon found incredibly seductive. And it _was Solas_ who first teased open the seam of Mahanon’s lips with his tongue, prior to taking up residence in Mahanon’s mouth as if he paid rent there.

 

It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d done that: only the first time he’d done it with his _tongue_.

 

They kissed and clinched, clutched-at and petted each other until they were both breathless. Mahanon, exhausted and kiss-dazed, had barely opened his eyes after he was let up for air, before he was sent stumbling to, thence sprawling on his bed. He rolled onto his back and, when the room stopped jittering and spinning, found himself shoeless, sockless, and blinking up at Solas with bleary, but awed eyes. The apostate’s smile was predatory and possessive under a veneer of kindly amusement. His right hand was very high and very not-shy about petting Mahanon’s inner thigh. Then higher, still. Markedly higher. Mahanon’s heart-rate picked up ever so slightly and his eyes fluttered shut. He arched up into that owning caress with shameless need and abandon, as he suspected he’d been meant to.

 

“ _Pleeeeeeease, Solas_ ,” he moaned, wantonly sensual and breathless as he bucked with increasing need into Solas’s firm hold. Soon, he was groaning and swearing as Solas’s hand tightened on him slowly. Not _quite_ to the point of agony, or even pain, but certainly in the foothills of sweet, sweet promise.

 

And then . . . Solas’s grip eased, and—with a final, lingering stroke—was gone.

 

“Later, perhaps. For now, get some rest, Herald. You have a busy time ahead of you,” Solas said—he sounded frustrated, but also genuinely well-meaning, somehow. Mahanon’s heart skipped a few beats and he laughed, small and sad.

 

“Sometimes, you remind me of Filius. He used to tuck me into bed, y’know? I mean, tuck _him and me_ into bed. I loved him. More than _anything_.” Mahanon swallowed and squinched his eyes tight-shut for a minute, until the tears were manageable. He refused to ruin Vel Rilienus’s record if he could help it. “Then he disappeared and I . . . I was alone again. I _am_ alone. _So_ alone. And I’ll never _not_ be alone anymore. It’s . . . hard to breathe, sometimes, when I think about that,” he confessed, gulping in breaths that couldn’t quite sustain, even as he did. Even as panic leavened by despair infiltrated every atom of him. “It only ever got harder and more painful, since I came here. Since . . . I was born. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I hadn’t been.”

 

Solas sighed. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, next to Mahanon. His heavy hand, when it settled on Mahanon’s knee, settled lightly. “ _Ir abelas, lethallen_.”

 

More elven—beautifully-said, and more than Mahanon’s barely-remembered knowledge of _hellos_ and _good-byes_ could translate. And with a strange accent, and emphases that made the words, themselves, slip from Mahanon’s tired mind like smoke into the night. “I don’t know what that means,” he whispered, sadder than ever for some reason.

 

“It means . . . I understand what you are feeling, Herald. More than you might think. And I am . . . greatly saddened that your sojourn here has mired, overwhelmed, and wearied you with such heartache.” The compassionate, anchoring weight of Solas’s hand disappeared, but then callused fingertips brushed Mahanon’s cheek a moment later. His stubbly jaw. His kiss-swollen mouth. His cheek, once more. Mahanon sighed almost happily and leaned into the touch, murmuring Solas’s name sleepily.

 

At this, the apostate jerked away as if his fingertips had been scorched. His following sigh was as soft and sad as the last, but frustrated and tired, too. _Bitter_. The only thing that made Mahanon ache and tremble more than that sigh, was remembering the caress that had preceded it. Then, remembering the first of that sort of caress he had _ever_ received, eight years ago. And before he could rouse himself enough to think better of speaking his scattered, exhausted mind, he’d already begun to do so.

 

“You . . . aren’t always awful,” his mouth declared. Then Mahanon winched his eyelids apart and grimace-smiled up at Solas, whose semi-distant profile was pale and solemn and attentive. “I mean . . . you kind of _are_ , but . . . I don’t _always_ want to murder you. _Sometimes_ . . . I like you.”

 

Solas merely continued to look attentive—and rather disturbed, too. Mahanon’s eyes were shutting and his wakefulness retreating again when the apostate at last responded.

 

“You . . . are not always awful, either, Herald. And I’ve no wish to murder _you_ . . . I never have. I doubt I ever will. Though, perhaps unfortunately . . . I like you more than is wise or safe.”

 

Mahanon surfaced a bit to hum and chuckle, but not to open his eyes. “Yooooou fancy me.”

 

Solas laughed, quiet and self-deprecating. “Your arrogance is . . . on occasion, amusing to me. And surprisingly endearing.”

 

“As I said: yooooou _fancy me_.”

 

Another laugh, at the end of which, Solas rose. “Sleep well, _da’len._ Until tomorrow.”

 

Mahanon made a muzzy sound of protest and tried to open his eyes. He failed spectacularly, as they only seemed to get heavier. “Stop using magic to make me sleepy, arsehole—I’ll fucking stab you,” he yawned, his jaw cracking loudly in the quiet room.

 

Solas muttered something that sounded like it _could’ve_ been elven. The accent was still strange and the words utterly unfamiliar. The tone, however, was clearly pissy and exasperated. “I have used no such magic upon you, Herald. _You_ must simply learn to accept that even the god-touched have limits to their stamina and endurance. And you’ve reached yours, for the nonce. Go to sleep.”

 

“Hmmm . . . I suppose I could. An’ you could _stay_. . . sleep _with me_.”

 

The beat that followed was long, and silent, but for the crackle of the fire and the quiet sounds of Solas adjusting his holster and staff. Then, he replied: “I know.”

 

“So, _stay_ , already. Arsehole.”

 

“That . . . would be another of those things we should not do. . . .”

 

“Why . . . you a blanket-thief, then? Try that shit with _me_ , and I’ll kick your arse out of bed, onto the cold floor! Whereon I hope you break your bloody arm for the presumption!”

 

“Herald— _Mahanon_.” Solas laughed yet again, unwillingly, but rather heartily. When that laugh tapered off, he sighed once again, too. But it sounded lighter and less weary. “Just because I _can do_ a thing—and, perhaps, _wish_ to do a thing—does not mean that I _should_. Nor does it mean that it would be right or fair or wise to do that thing. Or that it would . . . end well.”

 

Mahanon drifted while he and his triplets processed that reply. It was Vel Rilienus who came forward, out of his mood, to announce: “You’re exhausting . . . and stupid.”

 

That was worth _another_ laugh—a chuckle, that grew more distant and in the direction of the anteroom. And the front door. “You have plenty of company in thinking so, Herald.”

 

Vulpo nearly called after Solas to _please, don’t go_ , but Mahanon was just composed and alarmed enough to wrestle his Other _back_ , where Vel kept a muzzle on him for the moment and for all their sakes. “Wait—what if I want to be fucked-near-to-death after my breakfast?” he then whined, through a prolonged yawn-stretch-settle that left him boneless and barely conscious.

 

The creak of the front door opening paused, and a draft swept in and around the anteroom, then around Mahanon’s bedroom, causing him to shiver and grumble. Nevertheless, he could feel the focus of Solas’s amusement and almost-fondness like a distant heat-source.

 

“Then, you will know where to find me,” the apostate said wryly, more easy laughter in his voice. “ _Dareth theneras_ , Herald.”

 

The door creaked again as it was swung fully shut. And by the time the room was warm once more, Mahanon and his brothers were snoring. And smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dragon Age: Inquisition All Cutscenes (Game Movie) 1080p HD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI1RSlEJdRY) used for dialogue and reference, as well as [Dragon Age Wiki](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_Wiki).

**Author's Note:**

>  **A Quick End Note :**  
>  
> 
> So, I spent a year trying to write an INTERLUDE that would connect this fic to the previous one in the SoTI series. A bit of backstory that would end fetched-up in the present of Mahanon | Rilienus's life.
> 
> But as I remarked to one of my Discord groups: _I'm finally,_ finally _about to continue Sons of the Imperium. After over a year of chipping away at the damn interlude/backstory fic with little forward momentum or success, I realized I've been telling the story out of the most important order: the order in which I_ know what the fuck I'm doing _. I don't know this world well enough, just yet, or this Inquisitor, to tell_ that _story. What I AM able to tell is what happens after the Breach is stabilized and he wakes up as the_ Herald of Andraste _and a soon-to-be agent of the Inquisition. THAT story's been boiling in my brain for a year, at least, but I thought I had to wade through that interlude before I told it. I just realized last night that_ I don't have to _. . . THIS PLEASES ME. I hated that what was a turning-point fic for me was laying fallow for so long. Now, I've got a prologue and most of a first chapter. One of a projected eleven . . . X-MESS MIRACLE HAPPEN_
> 
>  
> 
> ::sheepish shrug::  
> Sorry to anyone who waited and was still waiting, or had been waiting and gave up in disappointment or even pique. I **always** try my best for readers, but my best isn't always my brightest, if you follow me. I never forgot this series, or you . . . I was just monumentally blocked and afraid of TARFUing the whole thing. But now, I've been redirected and jump-started. Let the games continue.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Credits and Thanks :**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [Dragon Age Wikia](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_Wiki).
> 
> "[Dragon Age: Inquisition All Cutscenes (Game Movie) 1080p HD](https://youtu.be/XI1RSlEJdRY)," featuring a Male Lavellan Rogue, used for dialogue and scene-building.
> 
> [TUMBLES with the bug](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)! And [PILLOWFORTS with the bug, too](https://www.pillowfort.io/beetle-comma-the)!


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